Breath-taking Beauty

As I sit at my kitchen table, coffee in hand, and drink in the beauty of the early morning light bouncing off the pure white scene around me, I find myself awestruck.

A landscape that only yesterday appeared as a muddy brown and dreary mess, today, is covered by the soft white light of a freshly fallen snow.

And it is absolutely breath-taking.

Everything on the farm looks fresh and new.

The old piece of equipment that long ago outlived its usefulness and now sits half-buried and nearly forgotten in the fence row could just as easily be a new plow with freshly sharpened blades ready for the warmer days of spring.

On this marvelous morning, it’s hard to tell what ugliness lies beneath the thick sheet of wintry wonder. It’s difficult to believe that anything dark or dreary could be looming just below the surface.

I know it’s there. Winter has left its mark on the landscape around our home turning fertile fields into bleak and barren wastelands of mud and death. But for today, at least, everything looks bright white and new.

The scene reminds me of the way we must look in God’s eyes when the blood of Christ covers us and makes us clean despite the mud we’ve wallowed in throughout our lives.

No matter how dirty our sins might be. No matter how deep the darkness we’ve hidden in our hearts. The blood of Christ makes us pure white in the sight of God.

Our heavenly Father sees us through the lens of the love He poured out on Calvary. The dark stains in our lives have been erased from His vision.

We are covered in a pure white snow of love and grace.

And He is awestruck by our beauty.

God is as enraptured by our beauty as we are by the beauty that surrounds us on days like today.

He thinks we are absolutely breath-taking.

And He wants us to know it. He tells us over and over in His word. He whispers it to us every day in the sunrises and sunsets and the stunning beauty of His creation.

Our Father longs for us to see ourselves in the soft white light of freshly fallen grace. Wrapped up in the splendor of His forgiveness. Covered in the radiance of His mercy.

Oh, that we could see ourselves the way He does.

Chosen.

Accepted.

Forgiven.

Loved.

As pure and white as the scene that surrounds us today.

Because when the pure white wisdom from above falls on our hearts and minds and we see ourselves in a new light –a gentler light of mercy – we begin to walk through our lives with the confidence of beloved children.

Resting in the knowledge that God’sgrace has washed over us and made us lovely in His sight.

Assured of our Father’s love for us.

Bold in our belief that His love candrive out the darkness of the world around us and bring hope to even the most hopeless among us.

When we glimpse ourselves throughour Father’s eyes, we see the whole world in a new light.

And we become a light that illuminates the dark landscape around us with the pure white light of hope.