Everything Beautiful In Its Time

My eight year old daughter and I glided through the water in a kayak this weekend. I paddled, she gazed at the surroundings. A gentle rain danced on the calm, smooth water, leaving ringlet curls that gradually grew and melded together. We travelled past Lily Pads with emerging yellow blossoms and over rocks and fish and branches that had fallen in to the lake long ago. The clouds in the western sky looked as if they had been brushed across a giant canvas.

As I dipped and lifted the paddle, the kayak slid through the water, I noticed the ripples that stretched out from each stroke of the paddle. I sighed to myself, "Ahhh, the ripples. How great I was feeling the ripple effect of consequences in my life, not of my doing."

The silence was broken by my sweet little daughters voice.

"Mom, did you know that God is an artist? But He doesn't paint with a brush, He uses His words to create everything. Isn't that amazing, Mom? Isn't it beautiful?"

And so my heart and mind immediately turned from the ripples, to the sky where I saw God's work unfolding as the sun was setting. The sky above was beautiful. I thought of how God called creation in to being with His words in Genesis, and then I thought of how He speaks to us with His words. I thought of how much I love my daughter and her insight and then I thought of how much God loves her, and me.

Dear reader, the same powerful Creator God who made the heavens and the earth and everything in it, including you, uses His words to speak tenderly to you and tell you of His love. In the midst of our pain He is creating beauty. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, "He made everything beautiful in its time." It can be difficult to see. Sometimes, I know that I am distracted by thinking about the consequences of the pain in my life instead of focusing on His beauty, or the beauty that He is creating in me through my circumstances. But God is the Creator of all beauty and He is at work, always. Trust Him as He beautifies you.