Allison Janae Blog

This is post is the final and Fifth Part of the series, “Meaningful Beauty“.

This last topic of our Meaningful Beauty series lands at a perfect time in correlation to the weather here in the Midwest. Over the last few days, the weather has been especially warm for March, and the signs of spring are everywhere: it can be smelled in the wind, heard in the birds’ songs, and felt in the sun’s light. Winter is finally over.

Springtime is universally known as a season of new life, growth, and beauty. Flowers spring up. The breeze perfumes the air. Squirrels and chipmunks scurry around to gather the last of their winter nut collection. Baby animals are born. Many weddings happen. An undeniable hope and energy charges everything. The depressing fog of winter lifts from our minds just as the last winter clouds drift away.

You’ve Gotta Fight for It

You may not live anywhere like my home state of Michigan, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t surrounded by beauty at this very moment. Noticing beauty isn’t about being in a special or unique place- it’s about seeking it out, wherever we are. Pursuing it, especially when it feels furthest from reach.

If you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, you know that sometimes praying, worshipping God, and studying your Bible is hard. We want to want to, but often we don’t. Those who are disciplined stick with it, pursuing their Creator even when they are tired, stressed, and busy. Those of us who are not-so-disciplined tend to drop off in our “time with God” when interruptions come our way, and before we realize it’s happened, we’ve stopped talking and listening to our Creator altogether.

We have to fight for our relationship with Jesus. His is like any intimate relationship: it doesn’t come by accident. It requires work, intention, and care all the time. 

Let’s take those points and apply them to beauty. What do you and I often do when it comes to seeing the beauty around us? I know for me, it’s usually the following:

• I get distracted by the ugliness around me, and I stop seeing the little things that used to catch my attention.
• I believe beauty is there, but I get distracted by busyness. I don’t have time to look for what’s lovely.
• I know beauty is somewhere, probably somewhere special and exotic. I would have to find someplace like this to find something beautiful.

Reader, what has happened to our childlike wonder? What has happened to carefree moments outside, barefoot, our hair tangled, our hands dirty from playing? Now that we’ve grown up, it feels like doomed to a life torn from wonder. We act like growing up means waking up “to reality”, and that reality is a dark, dismal, and hopeless place. 

This is simply not true when Jesus is our Lord and Savior: We have eternal hope in Him [John 11:25-27, 1 Peter 1:3-9]. Eternal life. Not only in the future but the Living Water of the Living God flows in us now [John 4:14, 7:38]. We are His children now and will be forever [John 1:12-13]. 

I know it rains. I know sometimes it hurricanes. Yet even then, the sun still shines. A soft breeze will still blow. Doesn’t nature nevertheless sing of God’s glory, ever beckoning us to join in the joyful chorus?

The Whisper in the Trees

I grew up being a child full of imagination, and a child who loved the outdoors. Countless hours of my childhood were spent playing outside in all kinds of weather (my mom homeschooling my siblings and I lent well to this). I would wear dress-up clothes and pretend to live in a wilder world than I really did. I loved to pretend I was “one” with nature, something of a mysterious woodnymph-like creature or fairy princess. 

That desire, one that I can’t quite fully explain, continues into my adult life. It doesn’t flesh out as my dressing up in old nightgowns and frolicking in the yard, but the desire to be a creature of beauty and a part of something beautiful is still deep inside my soul. Perhaps it is deep within yours, too.

A few days ago, I went on a hike at a local nature preserve. It was my first time seeing the trail, and I was struck by the wild, yet well-kept path. Treefrogs sang in chorus, overriding the sounds of cars on the freeway. Just out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a muskrat slipping into the creek. Crows, wrens, and chikadees’ voices spread throughout the canopy above. I found a beaver’s teeth marks on a standing tree. There was a gentle, soft burbling of water flowing over branches in the creek beneath the trail I walked. I could smell the warming dirt and the fresh-growing fauna. I filled my lungs with it.

 The whole air was charged with a special energy in that space. I could feel an alive-ness in the atmosphere, and a closeness to the Creator who handmade all of it. 

Perhaps it’s just me being a nature-lover, but I notice the veil between heaven and earth feels very thin when I am in such a place of beauty. The hiking trail I was on was not an extraordinary landscape. It was all something I had witnessed before- but I walked onto that trail expectant to find something good, and something good and beautiful came and found me. It was as though the noises, smells, and sights around me were direct whispers of the God who created me. 

It is difficult to notice good things. It is harder still to enjoy them. They feel so fleeting, so temporary. Like even the little good we get to have is going to be taken from us in the next instant. 

“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”

– 2 Corinthians 4:16-18

Where is our hope? It isn’t in this world’s fleeting beauty- yet this beauty, transient as it is, draws us to the eternal. It draws us to explore, learn, and pursue the heart of our Creator. It draws us to worship Him.

“Joyful, joyful, we adore You,
God of glory, Lord of love;
Hearts unfold like flow’rs before You,
Op’ning to the sun above.
Melt the clouds of sin and sadness;
Drive the dark of doubt away;
Giver of immortal gladness,
Fill us with the light of day!
All Your works with joy surround You,
Earth and heav’n reflect Your rays,
Stars and angels sing around You,
Center of unbroken praise;
Field and forest, vale and mountain,
Flow’ry meadow, flashing sea,
Chanting bird and flowing fountain
Praising You eternally!”