All the beautiful things

Every good thing is from God. There are many distortions,
many diluted strains of beauty,
but if you distilled every beautiful thing,
when it's pure,
you would see God's creative hand
giving it to us.

To us.

To us?

But God we corrupt.
We distort.
We confuse.
We tarnish, mistreat, misuse,

fail at our best attempts

at gratitude
at worthiness
at receiving
reallocating
re-gifting
re-cycling
re-using.

Oh God why did you give all your beautiful things to us?

All my knowledge of You
is confident in the answer

It was love.

But how could you love us so much?

Such love is this.
Such love.
So beautiful
so divine.

God if my thoughts and prayers to you

come before you as an offering,
they are not beautiful enough,
they are not pure enough to lay at your throne.

But if it's what you ask of me,

I give it all.
I give it all and wish to give more.

Make me more so I have more to give.

Make me holy so my gift to you is precious to you.

And I hear in my Spirit

how even my broken,
human
frailty is a beautiful offering
if surrendered to you.

It's not easy

to give what you feel is not enough
to wish for it to be more.

But just as the child who picks a bouquet of dandelions

and presents it to their Mother
has not given less than the most extravagant of roses,
so are our gifts of love and devotion to the Lord of Heavens armies.

So I give it all.

All my best, all my worst,
all my strengths (such as they are)
all my weaknesses (because for some reason you want them too)

I give it all,

even my sin.

God, such love,
there are not enough tears to cry
to express my gratitude
for this love.

And to think One day

it will be full.
One day all the beauty
will be seen in your face
with no distortion
glory as far as the eye can see
and as long as the mind can imagine

and then longer

and then farther
and then it will be only the beginning of your
love displayed for those you adore

Your chosen ones.

Thank you.