There is an intrinsic beauty in life — you cannot mistake it — the birth of a baby, the laughter of children, the gathering of family, and love. I believe that God ordained it so and created these moments to fill our hearts and keep us moving through life without being weighed down too much by those moments that steal our joy and threaten to smother us.
You know which moments I am speaking of — those things which cause our heart to ache to the point of almost breaking — the death of a spouse, burying a child, or a diagnosis that makes you feel that you’re teetering on the edge of a deep crevasse. These are those that cut you to the quick — they are catastrophic to our souls.
I have known some of those heartaches — I have, as David declared in Psalm 6:6 “I am weary with my moaning; every night I flood my bed with tears; I drench my couch with my weeping.” David begs God in the previous verses to save him with HIS steadfast love. Further, in Psalm 55:6 David submits, “Oh, that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest!” I know David’s despair…I have felt it. Yet, God calls David a man after HIS own heart.
In spite of the pain and despair, I have also found an intrinsic beauty in death. Death is hard — the most devastating things I have ever had to do in life were to bury my Momma and Daddy — at the time I could find nothing beautiful or worth salvaging from such an experience. I can find nothing beautiful in seeing misplaced children in the Middle East who have been mowed over by evil. There is nothing proper or intrinsically beautiful about saying, “Goodbye” to a life-long friend…my heart aches and withdraws and wants to stop beating.
I cannot change these things — I cannot make evil disappear — I cannot turn back the hands of time or change the world. Honestly, I am face-to-face with my plainness and ordinariness. I’m, like Job, standing in complete recognition that I am not the sovereign God of the Universe. As Job said, “Who am I to speak of things I do not know?”
However, with all of this sadness, God showed me a wonderful thing! Life is beautiful because HE created the beginning and end of it. HE has shown me this through the simple life-cycle of flowers. You see, my husband and son gave me some Tulips for Mother’s Day and pink Roses for my birthday. Both bouquets were so lovely — God created them in such splendor. However, like all things, the time had come for them to wilt and die and that is when I was overcome with what God had created at the end of life. He had not wasted the life of something so beautiful — He had, again, created intrinsic beauty in the death of these flowers.
Death means you lived! It means God created you for something beautiful — you are HIS design and He did not spare beauty in sadness or death. When someone you love passes on remember that HE IS GOOD!
Azalea Trees and Tea Rooms 