New Year's Revolution

The title is not a typo; I am no good at resolutions, so I am making a New Year's revolution this year. (I must admit the idea is not original; it came from a TV commercial.) The Free Dictionary defines revolution as "a turning about on an axis." So I am going to keep my center (God) and spin about it looking left, right, forward and back.  In the end, I suppose I am resolving to be revolutionary (per my definition).

The first thing I see when I look around is beauty. As I type this, a blizzard rages outside my window reducing visibility to just a couple hundred feet. I know it may seem strange, but I see raw beauty in this: the swirling flakes, the fresh white cover, the crispness of the chill. Driving is horrible; flying is impossible, but I love it just the same. (Confession: I love driving in it: the thrill -- the challenge.) Last month it was an ice storm that coated everything with diamonds, or so it seemed. Tens of thousands lost power due to downed branches, so I know it was not beautiful to them, but face it: the world just sparkles after a dose of freezing rain.

If my daughter could read this in real time, she would not agree. She is sitting at the airport waiting for a delayed flight back home after a holiday visit. Given the magnitude of this storm, I fear she may not get out today. It is ironic that her inbound trip last week was similarly delayed when they closed the airport she was to depart from. She admitted after the fact that the delay was a true Godsend because her little one came down with a serious infection which could be treated by the family physician and handled at home instead of while travelling. That was God's beautiful, perfect timing. 

Sylvia Verway at 19

A few weeks ago I stumbled across a photo of my mother as a young woman. I was stunned again by her physical beauty. It made me recall what a truly beautiful woman she was, inside and out. Before I started this post, I was reading a poem by Beth English called "When I was Beautiful." If you take the time to follow that link, you will be rewarded with another view of what true beauty is. The poem made me think of a song Nicole Nordeman had out a few years ago called "River God." Nordeman beautifully expresses the truth that the "River God" often uses apparently unlovely things to create beauty in our lives.

So I have caught myself in a lie. I am making a resolution after all. I resolve to revolve around a God centered point of view to see beauty in everything around me, no matter how ugly it seems. I will not let the distraction of world events or the disappointment by friends or the heart-weight of family situations blind me to the beauty that God constantly displays around me. If you catch me whining this year, reach out and slap me, please. If you do that for me, that will be beautiful too.