Do you see beautiful?

Maybe it’s how we were wired maybe it’s our past 
that fogs our lenses.
Maybe it’s the habit of negative thinking that seems a rut 
way too deep to ever 
climb out of.
And maybe we’re going through hard things 
and beautiful 
is just not even on our radar.

For some of us, it’s the demands 
of the day that stand 
before the beautiful 
blocking our view,
and others of us, 
we just can’t take the time 
because time is of the essence,
we’re running way too fast 
to smell the roses let alone 
see them. 

If we don’t train our eyes 
to see beauty,
ugly will take its place 
turning our day 
on its head. 
What if we dared to stare down 
the ugly
determined to unearth beautiful 
like an archeologist 
that knows it’s buried here somewhere.

Using our five senses 
to investigate the day 
for when we truly look and listen, 
we notice beauty 
all around us;
in the cloud formations, 
in the giggle of the little one, 
in the chatter of the early morning birds, 
in the sweep of the prairie grasses, 
in the steam off of your first morning cup of coffee, 
in the expanse of the ripening yellow canola fields, 
the cluster of cows grazing.

The more we look for beautiful, 
the more our eyes 
will be trained to see it
our ears will be tuned to listen for it. 
When we focus on beautiful,
when we recognize how God 
has provided for us in the past, 
and how he provides 
the beautiful for us today, 
pointing us to Him,
to the Creator of the beautiful,
to His love 
His provision, 
His enough-ness
maybe, just maybe 
we can begin to turn our eyes 
from all that is wrong, 
all that is messy, 
all that is hard, 
all that is ugly,
and begin noticing 
the beautiful.