Years ago, I was struggling to persevere in a season when everything seemed way too hard. As my husband and I served planting a church in an unreached region, I found the pressure of the spiritual, the cultural, and the physical climate was bringing out the worst in both of us.
I was miserable and desperate for a reminder of the hope that we professed. Furthermore, I was becoming discouraged at the scope of suffering around us. Joy was elusive. Yet my traditional strategies for finding comfort—an hour at a café, a jog by a stream, or a jaunt through a home decor store—were impossible in our context.
Obviously overdue for a rest, I was finally able to stay home while my husband took the kids out with friends. I was able to savor reading a book—with zero interruptions! A friend had been recommending a book about responding to the invitation to notice the world around us and behold the fingerprints of our Creator God.
I read of the author noticing the grass and trees, a pond, and the moonlight on her countertop. I could not fathom finding anything beautiful in our sun-scorched, hostile land outside. Our region had recently transitioned from a gray/brown winter, through weeks of gloomy mud and rain, to an oppressive dry heat that promised to suffocate the life out of any growth. But in the late afternoon, as the day cooled off, I ventured outside to take a walk.
Long before the noun “whimsy” was shoehorned into being an adjective, I went walking along the Silk Road, overlooking the Mesopotamian plain and crying out to the Lord.
“God, give me eyes to see,” I prayed. “I am weary and discouraged, and I am only able to notice the hardship, brokenness, and unending need. Not just in the community, but in my own soul. Show me beauty. Remind me you are at work and that our living in this place is not in vain. Give me the grace to notice more than the suffering around me.”
As I prayed, the golden hour did something to the landscape. What hours before had been aggressive sunlight reflecting off the sandstone, had now shifted to a softer glow and included flecks of pink and glitter. The boulder fields surrounding me became a masterpiece.
My treasure hunt continued. Sprinkled between litter, overflowing dumpsters, and discarded car parts, along with briars, boulders, and dust, there were exquisite petals, leaves, and colors breaking through the rugged landscape and singing songs of freedom and hope. I noticed bursts of color interrupting the dusty roads. Lining the road were red poppies bravely breaking through the brown path. A little farther, smoky blue corn flowers. There were even tender purple flowers and dark green leaves hiding in the shadows of the rocks. What treasures to behold! I would later learn that these flowers would not linger.
The flowers and the light didn’t change me immediately. But I began to give thanks for what I was noticing. By the end of the walk I was overcome with gratitude—to have the opportunity to behold and treasure the beauty.
Beholding beauty and beholding light, however subtle, has for a long time encouraged my soul. For those of us who are called to be lights in the darkness and to stand watch and pray, we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is eternal. And yet, in our struggle to stand firm, we can become desperate for the reminder of the goodness of the Lord and the hope that sustains us. I’m convinced that in the valleys of life we are strengthened as we behold the works of his hands. I believe that creation itself – as it declares the glory of the Lord – is intended to remind us of a bigger picture. The heavens remind us. The sunlight painting brown rocks remind us. And the flowers of the field remind us.
I’m not the only one for whom noticing nature has lifted a perspective. Years ago, I heard about Corrie ten Boom in her prison cell. What a gift that in a place designed to destroy Corrie’s hope, her joy, and her soul, the good Father brought her a messenger in the form of an ant, reminding Corrie that he was near and softening her heart for the world around her.
When I am visiting—or living—in places that seem easier to live, I find myself less desperate to look. Or perhaps I allow myself to be distracted from the treasure hunt by life itself. But I know that when life is hard, when circumstances rock my community, when my world becomes small, I am most willing to respond to the invitation to not give up. There is still beauty to be beheld, light to see, and hope for this dark world.
Having endured through some dark valleys, I am confident that what might look like an oversimplified, emotional bypass is instead a spiritual practice. Refusing to be overcome by darkness and instead beholding the fingerprints of God have restored and recreated my soul. That is the spiritual power of whimsy.
May our Father continue to give us eyes to behold—and the audacity to celebrate—the works of his hands.
What stirs delight in you? How do you foster whimsy in your life?
