Ugly Beautiful

I've been thinking a lot lately about "Ugly Beautiful." If you've never heard that term, it's a concept that Ann Voskamp talks about in One Thousand Gifts (chapter 7). Ugly beautiful is "counting the ugly as grace, transfiguring the ugly into beauty with thanks" (p.135) I honestly haven't moved the thoughts that I know to be true about "ugly beautiful" from my head to my heart. Not when the "ugly" I'm living around includes things like poverty, children dying from treatable diseases, hunger that bloats stomachs and eventually kills, wives being beaten by their husbands in front of their children, children left alone on the streets. Not when the "ugly" I struggle with is a friend dying suddenly in America while I'm in Uganda, missing my adult children who are still in TX and OK, and the loneliness of being on another continent.

One quote that has been especially meaningful to me as I struggle with implementing this in my life is found on page 138, "Wrestle with God, beg to see the blessings...and all faces become the face of God."

Also on p. 135 Ann says, "The practice of giving thanks...eucharisteo...this is the way we practice the presence of God, stay present to His presence, and it is always a practice of the eyes. We don't have to change what we see. Only the way we see it."

When I think of Ugly Beautiful I think of razor wire. If you just look at it, it looks ugly. It's there for defense. It will cut you if you get near it. But look at it in the right light and you see something beautiful. I'm praying to look at things around me in the right light...in the light of Jesus and His love. Only HE can make the ugly beautiful. I can't change what I see...but HE can change the way I see it.

If you'd like to read a little more about razor wire, check out this blog post from February 2011.