Philippians 4:4-9

Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice! Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do. Remember, the Lord is coming soon.

Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.  Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.  Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.

For years, I’ve been encouraging my clients to keep a Beauty Journal – a journal used to physically record all the things that went right in a day.  Why do I think this is an important exercise?  Well, just take a moment and look around you.  How much of your world is full of negativity and sadness, destruction and despair, heart ache and heart brokenness?  These things are everywhere!  They surround us.  And if there aren’t enough of them in your own, personal life the media will make sure that you get your fill.

It is amazing that more people are not swept away in the depths of depression when experiencing this fallen world.  I know that many chose to ignore the pain that surrounds them and they are able to “create” a world that is more comfortable by denying the reality of the world and relationships.  (i.e., “My husband really isn’t physically abusive.  He just had a bad day.”  “My daughter really doesn’t have a drug problem.  She’s just going through a phase.”  “I really do not have a drinking problem.  I just need a drink to relax after work.”  “I really want this new high definition television and paying off the credit won’t take that long.  I work hard, I deserve it.”  “I really don’t work that many hours.  Money is important.  My wife and kids understand.” …)

It is important to develop some honesty when looking at what is going on around you.  Take an honest look and take it in.  The reality of our fallen world is heavy.  But don’t stop there.  I challenge you to look deeper – for the beauty.

In and amongst all that is fallen, God provides so much that is rich and beautiful.  We just often times miss it because of all the negativity that surrounds us.  Did you know that research has revealed that it takes nine positive things to undo the impact of one negative thing on our human psyche?  It is almost as if the negativity in our world has a powerful magnet drawing our attention. It is as if we are automatically pulled to what is negative and the power that the negativity has is 9 times more powerful than a moment of joy.  It is because of this that we must become more proactive in seeking out all that is good.

If we stop looking toward those things that suck the life and  joy out of us and start looking to those things that are “true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable” and claim them as the God-given gifts they are, we would begin to enjoy more moments with God’s peace filling our hearts.  The peace that passes all understanding can be ours…it can be yours!  God has placed all that is beautiful in our world to fill us with the experience of his love.  We must seek out the beauty, claim these things as the gifts they are and hold them in our hearts.

This is where the Beauty Journal comes into play.  The negativity in our lives is a habit of thought.  Change the habit!  Actively seek  out the beauty!  The Beauty Journal is simple.  It only takes three simple steps to complete.  You can handle that!

1) Look for 10 Beautiful Things -

I challenge you to start looking for 10 things a day that bring lightness to your heart, a smile to your face, a peace to your mind.  What are 10 things that are gifts that God is bringing into your day…just 10!  They can be as simple as your car starting with the first turn of the key all the way to something as glorious a beautiful sunrise.  I don’t care what they are…I know they are there.

2) Claim Them As Your Own -

Write them down.  Get a journal (get a piece of paper!) and write them down – EVERYDAY – into your journal.  By writing them down, you are claiming them and making them your own.  Have you ever thought about claiming a sunrise as your own?  If not, why?  God could have made the sunrise without all of the beauty that comes with it.  He could have been practical and just made the sunrise simply functional.  But he didn’t.  He made it beautiful – for you!  He wants you to be reminded about how crazy he is about you!

3) Hold Them In Your Heart -

As you write these 10 things down, day after day, hold them in your heart.  Read the list, every  day!  As you read over the list of gifts that are given and you’ve claimed, the gift of the beauties literally multiplies right in front of your eyes.  You will visually see the power of God’s gifts as reminders of his presence in your life.  As you daily reflect on these gifts and praise God for them, the peace that passes all understanding will fill you.  It can’t help but happen.

What is the catch?  There is one!  You have to be an active participant.  You have to do your part.  God provides the beauty.  You have to experience it.  If someone gives you a beautifully wrapped and carefully selected birthday gift and you never open it – what’s the point?  The same is true with the gifts from God.  You have to do your part and receive them!

You must look for the gifts, claim them as your own and hold them in your heart.  When you do, you may be surprised at how the  negativity in the world loses its power and how the gifts start filling your days and your heart.  It will become a habit to look for these things.  It will become part of you.  God’s love will fill you and you will experience God in every beautiful thing.  From the pen that has ink in it to the awesome show of a lightening display to the song of a bird to the laughter of a baby – God’s love will flow through the gifts he is giving you and the peace that passes all understanding will fill your heart and mind – negativity will have no room!

Change your life – look for God’s gifts of beauty!

 I agree with the authors’ premise that it is important to focus on the good things in life, but it is from that point forward where my philosophy of life takes a different turn.  I do believe it is important to focus on the good rather than putting all of our energy in thinking about the bad: worries, anxieties and those things beyond our control.  But, I don’t believe that by focusing on good, that anyone has the power to bring those beautiful things into life, or that if you focus on the bad, you are only inviting the bad things to invade your paradise.  Beauty and sadness are all around you.  It is what you focus on (what you are looking for) that defines your experience.  The potential of unbridled happiness is there – everywhere.  You just need to focus on it, so you see it.  If you don’t look for it, you won’t ever see it – but it is there all of the time – all around you.

Grandma

My grandmother seemed to excel at finding the beauty in the world.  At the young age of 13, she had to quit school after her 8th grade year, and begin working.  Coming from a large, Danish, immigrant family of 12 children at the beginning of the 1900’s, the sons were the only ones allowed to finish school through 12th grade.  If you were a daughter in my grandma’s family, you didn’t return to school after 8th grade.  Instead, you went to work as a house girl for a wealthy family in the surrounding area.

 For my grandmother, her assigned wealthy family happened to be 50 miles away from her home and family.  For a 13 year-old girl to move in with a strange family 50 miles away is an incredible concept to me.  Can you begin to imagine what that must have been like?  Without automobile transportation, 50 miles was a very time consuming trip by horse and wagon, and even more lengthy by foot.  But, that was expected and that is what my grandmother did.

 She didn’t talk much about that time.  When she did tell me about it, she never complained but rather, reflected on it with a sparkle in her eye.  She then quickly would move into the part of her life’s story where she played the “fiddle” with a band for barn dances.  That is how she met my grandfather.  He was an early 1900’s “groupie.”  He followed Grandma from barn dance to barn dance until he finally won her heart.  Grandma and Grandpa met when she was 18 years-old.  She loved to share that story with me.  She loved music, and she loved Grandpa.  It was a beautiful story and I cherish it to this day.  I think I especially enjoy this story since it was so obvious to me that Grandma was focusing on all of the joy from her youth to share with me – rather than the difficulties of being separated from her family or not being allowed to finish school.

 On the Lake

 When I was very young, I would spend time at my grandparent’s home.  It was on Beed’s Lake in Northern Iowa.  It is a small lake, yet it was beautiful in scenery.  Houses were all along the northern shoreline – up the hill from the water.  On the south side of the lake there still is a state park, campgrounds, swimming area, and a dam.  As teenagers, we would always take a walk around the lake.  Not much more than an hour or two, depending on how many things we needed to stop and see along the way.  We always stopped at the dam, though.  Watching the water splashing over the rocks as it fell to the stream below was always mesmerizing.  There was something quite spiritual about sitting next to the dam and walking around the stream…it was so tranquil…even with the sound of the crashing water.

 Grandma and Grandpa’s home was on the northern shore of the lake.  The house was up the hill about 200 yards from the shore.  I would sit for hours on the dock, just listening, watching and taking in all that was there.  The yard was full of trees and my grandparents had landscaped their yard as a retreat for birds of all kinds.  Grandma used to take me out with her while she tended to her many rose bushes and other flowers.  We would talk about the plants and would watch for songbirds.  It was there that I saw my first cardinal.  I thought it was the most beautiful bird I had ever seen, with its red feathers.  It took my breath away.  Grandma taught me about many of the birds that came to feast at the feeders Grandpa tended to every day.  We would also sit on their porch and just listen and watch.  It was beautiful.  It was a wonderful place to visit – I felt loved and so close to beauty.  Some of my happiest memories are there at Beed’s Lake.

Grandma never really sat me down to ‘teach me’ about the importance of looking for beauty.  She never told me how it was all around and I just had to keep my eyes open and my heart ready to embrace it all.  No, her lesson was much more subtle.  Instead, we would be talking about something else when she would interrupt with a quiet, “shhhhh…listen/look!”  Then she would point out a deer, a bird, a piece of music playing, a colorful sunrise, a child’s laughter, a twinkling star, all of those beautiful things that were surrounding us.  Just by living and being present with me, she taught me how to see the beauty all around me.  As I watched her and saw her embrace her surroundings – I learned how to find my happiness through the moments of beauty that I encountered every day.

What Did I Ever Do?

This lesson was really driven home to me when she moved into a nursing care facility.  It was an old mansion that had been added on to and refurbished.  The main mansion housed the parlor and dining room.  My aunt, who was the administrator of the home, had worked feverishly to restore the beautiful mansion that once was a home for a very wealthy family.  The parlor was finished in period pieces and it was beautiful in every way.  It was here, one day, where Grandma and I had retreated for an afternoon visit.  We were visiting about the recent presidential candidates (she loved talking politics) when she stopped mid-sentence and quietly shook her head from side to side.  She said, “Oh, Jackie!  I sometimes wonder what I ever did to deserve to live in such a beautiful place like this!”

I was overwhelmed with emotions.  I had heard so many elderly people complaining about having to live in a care facility and there were people in that very room who were obviously depressed and sitting in grief.  I was sitting with an old woman who was overcome with the beauty that was surrounding her.  She saw past her walker and the strain her heart experienced.  She saw past her wrinkled skin and deteriorating body to all the beauty that surrounded her.  She was in the moment, thankful for all her eyes took in – she was genuinely happy.