Beauty?

Annie taught me a great lesson today.  If you're a church-going sort of person, it was one of those, I could use this in a talk moments (maybe I'm the only one who thinks like that).

We were walking out of the grocery store.  It was warmer today so the roads were slushy and wet, dirty puddles everywhere.  Walking to our car, Annie stops.  On the ground was this beautiful, circular, little rainbow from a drop of oil in the road.  We stopped and enjoyed it for a several moments.  I'll be honest, I was waiting for Annie to reach out and touch it, taste it, etc.  A few steps further, another pretty rainbow, another pause to admire.  She kept saying how "bootiful" it was.  She was right and she got me thinking.

Thought #1: most people wouldn't consider oil in the road beautiful.  Frankly, most people wouldn't even look down to notice, or if they did, they wouldn't stop.  Too busy.  Beauty hits us in the most obscure ways, if we're looking.  We'll always see it, if we're looking.

Thought #2:  sometimes my life feels like a drop of dirty oil in the middle of a scummy parking lot.  Do you ever feel that way?  It's usually short-lived, but real nonetheless.  Yet, with a little water the rainbow appears.  The water is grace.  God's grace turns my sometimes-scummy life into a thing of beauty.  The beauty comes in the struggle, the overcoming, the lessons, and the resulting strength.  Here's the catcher: I have to make a choice.  Look to this source of grace or keep on walking.  I have to admit, sometimes I wallow in my scumminess.  Sometimes I want to stay mad or upset.  Ridiculous, I know. Where's the beauty in that? 

Life's a process.  I'm obviously still working on it.

p.s. the picture is not "our" drop of oil.  Courtesy of the internet.  But it looked just like it.