Everything Beautiful

 

On this bright, sunny day, I came upon a yard that seemed to be all about sports and activity. There was a swing in the tall oak tree. There was a basketball goal in the driveway. And at the curb was stacked a discarded climbing wall. Everything about this scene spoke of energy and youth and fun.

But there was something striking about the discarded climbing wall. The time for its place in the world of this family had passed. Whether the children had outgrown it or the wooden structure had succumbed to time and the elements, I will never know. Perhaps a new and better version of it stood in the backyard. Perhaps it was replaced with something even more fun and more challenging for the children as they are today.

The philosopher writes in Ecclesiastes, “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” We do not know all we want to know about life and death and the constant change we experience in between. Answers often elude us as we navigate the passing years and challenges life brings. Yet, in it’s way, every stop along the journey can hold beauty and meaning. It seems that perhaps a key to finding joy is to not hold too fast to those things that are fading and to be open to embrace that which is coming into focus. Perhaps everything will be beautiful in it’s time. That, I suppose, would be faith. To believe that, even when we can’t see it, God is with us and is at work in us. And that, it seems, is in itself, beautiful.

Peace.