The habit of seeking beauty

Photo by Megan Carson

The legos on the floor are the last straw. I have been awake for six hours already. My back is aching from holding the sick baby, and my mascara is crusty on my eyelashes. I kick the legos to the side of the room and fight the urge to yell. 

Inhale. Exhale.

My son looks at me with a question in his eyes. Are you okay?

I’m not okay. I am tired and mad and so sick of the winter and stepping on toys and my work and the bills and the decisions and the laundry that seriously never seems to end. 

When will I rest?
When will it get easier? 

I find myself suspended, choking on the grief of life’s daily disappointments.

He opens the curtains and turns with a huge smile on his face.

“Look Mama! The fairy dust!” 

The sun shines in and reveals thousands of tiny dust fragments circling the air in our living room. He lifts his arms, trying to catch them...letting the light play on his fingers.

I stand and watch him, then grab my camera and lay on the ground, tilting the lens up to catch the sun. I click once, twice, and let the light wash over me, too.

* * *

I’ve made it a practice to take at least one photo every day. To seek beauty in the mundane, the ordinary, the regular bits and pieces that make up my life. There are days where the photo is obvious—the sunset is gorgeous and my kids are holding hands. But more often than not, I have to keep my eyes open to the everyday moments around me. It is a treasure hunt for light, color, texture, details, emotions. It is an invitation into gratitude and into communion with my Father. He stops me in my tracks, dust swirling, in my disappointment and grief. He meets me there. He gives me eyes to see. In this practice of photography, I am awake to see the present—the now. This is where God dwells. He is here with hands brimming full of beauty.

In each snapshot, I am reminded of the story He is telling. His story is full of grace and redemption and renewal. His story fills my lens and captures my heart again. His is the story I want to live in.

When I think about Jesus’s last days on earth, I wonder what snapshots I would take. His head bent listening; laughter in his eyes; moonlight on the olive trees; palm leaves on a dusty road; his hands holding a warm loaf of bread; his arm around Peter’s shoulders...He was present and awake in God’s story.

“When I’m present, I meet I AM, the very presence of a present God. In His embrace, time loses all sense of speed and stress and stands so still and...holy. I am a hunter of beauty and I move slow and keep the eyes wide, every fiber of every muscle sensing all wonder and this is the thrill of the hunt. 

I hunger to taste life.

To taste God.”

—Ann Voskamp