Finding Beauty in the Magnificiently Mundane of Your Life

Seemingly a thousand nick-nacks lay scattered across my bedroom floor. It’s 5:30 in the morning and they stare back at me almost begging for me to touch them…

There sits a small chalk board I used to prop in front of my children on their first day of school, a pink tiny converse I just couldn’t get rid of from my now almost seven-year-old and a science and God dvd from a conference my husband and I attended twenty years ago.

It was the first time I realized science and God are not enemies, but a reflection of one another.

All these forgotten possession, seemingly insignificant or too small to tend to.

Over the last many years with kids coming and going, as a wildly busy foster and adoptive mom, I would frequently gather clutter on my counters, scoop it up, put in a box, then tuck it into my closet to go through later.

Year after year of doing this, I stumble across boxes of tiny little nick-nacks, ignored and seemingly insignificant. 

If you know me at all, you know I like big picture thinking, generally clean spaces, simple living, clutter-free visual fields to gets me through the day.

But at the beginning of this year, I found a box….o.k. not just one box…FIVE rather large boxes of random selections collected throughout our house over the years.

The Big

I have two pages of missions trips I have been wracking my brain to choose from, a conference in November I need to fly and speak at, and this book…Oh how this book has taunted me on my laptop…

My mind spins with big dreams and purposes. You too?

The Small

But then, I see that baby shoe lying on the floor and remember our little girls very first steps; the way she toddled across the lawn, hands up, smiling as if the universe was bowing to her new talent.

I see the chyrstal powder bowl that used to sit on the back of my mother’s toilet. I envied that possession & still remember as if it was yesterday how fancy she seemed powdering her arms or legs before going out to see people.

Why did these small treasures just sit in some box? Why do the quiet, unseen things often find themselves lost, unvisited, and unappreciated?

This world is famous for loud and proud, big adventures, wild celebrations, noisy populations of people all trying to be seen.

Yet, at 5:00 and something in the morning the house lay quiet with four angels laying cozy in their beds. And they don’t need a mama who travels or speaks, but one who bends low, like Jesus, and washes their feet.

How Jesus Sees

Haven’t you ever wondered why Jesus left the crowd, was found on a mountain, surrounded by beauty or made his way a part from the crowd to talk with God, instead or just rising in power in the city?

Why when famous, didn’t Jesus make prearranged speaking engagements? He instead let His day be interrupted by the unseen and mundane, the broken and the beautiful things around Him.

Did Jesus have a secret we often ignore? Did He find beauty comes not in the mob, but in the infamous relationships between him and just one other person?

Jesus didn’t need to walk through Samaria to find the woman at the well. He didn’t need to be found on the beach, cooking fish to feed the disciples who were busy producing, fishing in their boats.

He didn’t need to bend low and see the woman scorn, outcast, ready to be stoned, forgotten, subjected to the judgement of other people….But He did.

I miss a lot in my busy life. Maybe you do too?

Maybe you are like me and forget the mundane, overlook the unseen, rise your eyes to the grande, while struggling to bend and just quietly love those around you.

Let’s Not Miss Tiny Treasures

Her eyes sparkle as she lifts her little hands, not for water or food…but just to be held. I wrap her in my embrace and don’t teach or talk, but just dwell in that blanket of affection from my tiniest toddler.

She holds up a picture, “It’s you and me, Mama”. Her eyes glimmer and shine. She looks hard and strong to find appreciation.

And while I spin to make dinner, I must remember to bend low and see her…not just the picture…but the message she is still needing…The one we all, quite frankly, need to keep hearing…

You are loved. Loved always, loved wildly and loved completely.

He drips slow water. The forcast is freezing. He has fixed our pipes way too often. He locks each door before we are all sleeping and checks on the girls to make sure they are tucked in safely, warm and protected.

He kisses each foreheard after saying their prayers. He would stand in front of a bus for them. He loves each one of our kids so radically and selflessly.

I see him text our adult son. He thinks, then types. His affection never ends, despite what kind of day he’s had or what he is personally experiencing.

Not one child slips by not seen by my husband. Do they know how blessed they are to have a dad who sees the small, notices each person around him?

Unseen is his speciality. Mundane is turned to beauty in His eyes. And I love him for it.

Yet, here I am, the house is sleeping. I just keep ignoring the tiny clutter of one last box I’m not yet willing to throw away…

A small wallet with “Redeemed” on it. That was my word when I got it. Somehow God knew as I opened it with amazement; His reminder that I am more than saved, but redeemed by the blood of Jesus.

Have I forgotten? When I seek to climb, travel or soar….

Do I forget that beauty also lies in the small, mundane things like washing dishes while listening to worship music, silent prayers knelt by the early morning fire, or more folding of the laundry as my heart leaps over every child and I am reminded of just how deeply I love them?

Jesus stopped. He saw. He noticed. He dwelled. Jesus was an expert at seeing the unseen, grasping the little moments and little people…those the high and mighty often missed.

My Prayer in the Mundane

Oh God, won’t you bring me low? Low enough to know life is lived most in the wonders of the small, the meloncholy of it all, the gratefulness of the mundane…

Help me to remember, beauty is found in the moments spent seeing a world others often miss, finding glory in small things.

Help me to not throw away anything just becuase it isn’t perfect. With you I can delight in the small…a small story, a small journey, a small manger….

Only YOU are magnificient.

The Call to Remember

I pick up the tiny shoe, the chalk board and teddy bear I have been saving for someone special. I hold them close as treasures.

They are small, unseen, yet they are beautiful.

In our highest-rising, power-climbing, social-media-performing world…let’s not miss the mundane. There is beauty; thoughtfulness, treasures, precious beauty in the everyday moments of our lives…

Beauty lies in small things.

A few photos of our mundane moments: