Beauty

I've felt overwhelmed lately with all of hope and promise in 2014. Everyone placing their goals and resolutions for the year on all forms of media and I can barely make plans for tomorrow. Weight loss, promise to be better, a promise to work harder or a promise to eat healthier. I want all that but I feel stuck on how everything seems overwhelming and what if I fail with such big promises?

I think with the illness in our family and my busy work schedule I feel overwhelmed and outnumbered when it comes to predicting positive and hopeful plans. Don't get me wrong, I love all of the fresh starts and feeling of a clean slate for the new year- I am just having trouble shouting a full on plan from the roof top. I'm not negative- I feel positive for our future just shaky on what road to take- when. 

Today we took the kids to build a bear and since we had a lax morning and got a late start- they were already tired by the time we left the house. Build a bear took an hour and then lunch took even longer. They were exhausted and so was I. I kept asking myself why did we even leave the house? Why don't I learn that we can't have lax mornings? Why didn't I plan better? And then I remembered- beauty in all things. God wants us to see beauty in all things. He wants us to have a renewed heart and selfishly, I've been wanting to just stay in 2013 without change or growth. Without necessarily stopping to see the beauty in all things. 

Ecclesiastes 3:11

11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet[a] no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

2 Corinthians 4:16

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.

So today I think I will focus on just that. Beauty in all things. Finding beauty in the moments that don't feel or look beautiful and feeling grateful for these babies, the food on our table, the warm house we call our home and the family dinners we have with the people that we love. 

We have healthy two and a half year olds and a whole year to see the beauty in 2014. I will be choosing a beautiful thing to write about each month and will keep you all posted. I hope you are inspired to see beauty in our own lives. Even on the days that don't seem that beautiful... 

Here's to 2014, friends. Get your beauty on!