This morning I was walking to the daily prayer service held at a small, peaceful church in Greenville called St. Paul. Last year I had a religion class that was held there. The walk is several blocks and my professor always urged us to see the walk as a pilgrimage. So, on my pilgrimage this morning I looked for God. I began to see him in the beauty of the world around me. I saw the sun make the grass into glitter as it hit the dewdrops. I saw the intricacy of the leaf patters and the details of the berries. I heard the birds and felt the warmth, and I dwelt in the marvel of it all.
And then I looked down.
Off to the side, I was walking next to an untamed, ill-kept, over-grown, weed-ridden lawn with patches of earth visible all over. I mean, it wasn’t extremely hideous or anything, but it definitely didn’t belong in the spiritual experience I was having with the splendor of nature. And God asked me this, “Is this beautiful?” I looked at the lawn and I wrestled within myself, trying to find some sort of aesthetic appeal, but I couldn’t. Finally I decided, “It is redeemable. Just run a lawn mower over the top and put a little work into it, and it could be like all the other manicured lawns. It’s redeemable.” To which He replied, “I don’t mean does it have the POTENTIAL to be beautiful, Miranda. I mean can you see the beauty of it NOW, as it is?” Oh. I couldn’t. It was an ugly lawn. I didn’t see the beauty, and I confessed that to Him, slightly shamed, knowing I was supposed to be able to see beauty in everything. He saw the beauty in it. But this is what He taught me: He accepts and loves us AS WE ARE, right where we are, still an ugly, untamed mess. Of course He sees the potential with in us, and that excites Him, but it is not a condition for His love. It is not a condition for our beauty. So many times I do this to other people. I can’t accept what they are, but I might be able to accept who I can build them up to be in my head. We look at the homeless or the poor and we want to redeem them in the world. We want to clean them up and manicure them to a restored state in our eyes, but we must first see beauty in them as they are. I also do this to myself, believing God only loves what I COULD be, not what I am. This doesn’t mean that we should stop seeing the potential, because there is definitely a deep beauty in the redemption, but I need to stop seeing beauty ONLY in the potential. God, help me see through Your eyes, and I am in awe that you would accept and love me as I am.
