Beauty in the Ugly

I often (okay, pretty much always) focus on what is negative.  Someone can give me a compliment and I immediately refute it.  Or call that someone's mental stability into question.  (Example:  Mike tells me I'm beautiful.  I reply,"You are crazy.")  (Or maybe he needs new glasses.  Hmmm.  That is a definite possibility.) 

Like this picture, I focus on all the stuff that is peripheral.  The stuff that is peripheral, but that is also chaotic.  There is all this mess, all this garbage that grabs my attention and drags me down to the depths of despair.

I've got a lot of issues.  Sometimes it feels like I've got a few garbage bags full of...well...garbage that I'm carrying around.  It's hard to feel worthy of much of anything when you feel like garbage.  But, somehow God looks at me (yes, I know it's not just "somehow".  I'm covered with the righteousness of Christ...but it doesn't always feel like it, right?) and sees someone worthy of loving.  Someone he wanted to save.  He can see beauty and value amidst chaos and trash.

The funny thing is, it works another way, too.  It's not just God seeing the beautiful in the middle of the ugly, it's me seeing his beauty in the middle of the ugly.

I know that when I focus on what is truly important, then the clamoring, distracting disaster all around me (and most likely created by me) (or one of my offspring...oh, the unfortunate genes!), that disaster blurs and the one true and beautiful thing shines so brightly.  It's lovely.  It makes me feel hope.

Hope is life-giving for me.  I place my hope in my Savior, Jesus Christ.  Oh, how I love him.