Beauty.

Beauty.  Beauty surrounds us everywhere.  It's rather easy to look around ourselves and see the beautiful things of this world, especially the beautiful things of mother earth.  I live in Syracuse, New York where the most beautiful and magnificent colors live during the autumn months.  From where I currently sit I can look out any window and see these beautiful colors displaying themselves solely for my pleasure.

I read somewhere, and I forget who said it but the quote goes something like "If we could understand the miracle of a single flower, our whole world would change."
It's rather easy to observe and admire the beauty of nature.  What's hard is observing and admiring that same beauty in humanity, in the people that we inhabit this earth with.

My heart has recently been opening wider and wider to the understandings of beauty and love.  I shouldn't say understanding, I don't know if we'll ever be able to fully understand beauty or love.  I've been observing beauty and love lately and that has made all the difference in my heart.

We know that God did not intend for His creation to live alone.  In Genesis we see that God looked upon Adam and his loneliness and decided to create Eve in order to bring wholeness into Adam.  God even used Adam to create the beauty of Eve.  Adam sees eve for the first time and expresses "bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh."  God created us to live together with one another, to draw strength from each other.  Yes, God is our source and He is our supply but God also created humanity that we should need each other in very intimate and real ways.

I've read books before talking about this need to live in close community with one another, how we need others to be healthy and live great lives, but I never fully understood the idea.  That is until recently.

Living in Syracuse I never felt like I connected with the city or the majority of its people.  I always dreamed of moving away and finding a place I could fit in, where the city and the people would accept me for who I am.  Then these crazy people from California started coming to my church.

Alan and Jaimie* walked into church one Sunday morning and blew me away.  "Are those normal people?" I wondered.  Almost immediately Alan and Jaimie* opened their home to me.  They invited me over to their house on a Friday night to sit outside on their big deck, drink some beers, and just talk.  These people have warmly and affectionally invited me into their lives and they've become such wonderful and strong supports for me in the little time I've known them.  When I look at their family I see the full beauty of Gods most wonderful creation.  I look at their family and I say "bone of bone and flesh of my flesh."  Without their friendship I wouldn't be who I am today, and I've only known them for a short amount of time.  But that's what God does.  He connects us and binds us together as family because He knows that's where we'll grow and develop the most.
I am beginning to learn so much more about God and His beauty by simply knowing this beautiful family.

This is the beauty of Gods creation.  That we can see Him in others, that we can find ourselves in the relationships we have with others, that we can learn about the beauty He has created by simply knowing someone else.  The most wild, brilliant, and beautiful flower in all of the world leaves much to be desired when we consider the beauty we find in these relationships.

Being a part in such relationships unlocks our very souls.  It draws us closer to each other, closer to knowing ourselves, and closer to knowing the Creator.  There is something about the heart of God that I will only know and understand when I am able to be a part in such a beautiful friendship as this.

So Thank You to Alan and Jaimie* for being my brother and sister, for being my friends, and for drawing me closer to Jesus and the beauty found in this world.

There is a game that we sometimes play in churches, especially prophetic ones.  It's called "When I look at you I see..."
Well Alan and Jaimie*, when I look at you I see...
Strength, beauty, love, joy, grace, mercy, gentleness, kindness, family, friendship, humility, wisdom, and above all I see Jesus.

Love you guys!