I love the ability to see beauty! Not just in the aesthetically pleasing, but everyday moments and events in life. A few years ago I met a girl who said the word beautiful a lot. She was just a really positive person, and while I had never heard “beautiful” used as a response to much of what she used it for, I really liked it. Then, after hanging out with her for a while, it began to rub off on me. I came home, and I couldn’t stop saying it either. Many people called me out on it, saying it was an incorrect use of the word, and so I soon stopped, but I want to bring it back. I recently began saying it more which led to a close friend of mine asking me today if I should save that word for things that were truly beautiful. This of course left me to explain why the amount and way in which I used the word, to me, was fine. There is more to beauty than the aesthetic. Sure there is a lot of bad in this world, but God originally created it all as good, and while the world has stained it with evil, there is still a lot of good and beauty in it. And not just the more easily seen beauty of this world, though, sunsets, mountain top views, flowers, and star filled skies are all very important for us to notice. But God himself is beautiful, and when His glory is seen by our small actions, that is beautiful. His blessings and bestowed talents are also beautiful gifts to us as well, and when we use them it is beautiful. In scripture we are called His masterpiece, and I don’t know about you, but when I walk into a museum, and see some of the masterpieces that some of the great artists have done, I can’t help but stand in awe of their beauty. So if we are His masterpieces, there has to be beautiful things throughout our lives, and what a shame that would be if they went unnoticed. Acts of kindness, small achievements, smiles, and, laughs, these are all things that we need to notice and see the beauty in. A kind deed is very beautiful, as are the meals my mother makes every day, but how often do I say in response to the set table, beautiful!! Sure there are some things that are universally seen as beautiful, but I think that as God opens our eyes we should be able to see beauty in more than just the aesthetic. An old Confucius proverb is that “everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.” I think there is a lot of truth in that statement. I think if we take a closer look, more often than not, we will see something of immense beauty. An Italian poet, Dante Alighieri, also once wrote that “beauty awakens the soul to act.” If this is true, than wouldn’t there be great benefit in noticing more of the beauty around us? If we see the beauty in kindness, and our desire is to be beautiful, as I think most do desire, than shouldn’t acknowledging the beauty of it cause us to want to be more kind as well? I want to respond with the word beautiful more so that I can be reminded of all of the beauty that surrounds me. I want this to be my response so that my life in turn will be inspired to act in these ways of beauty. And lastly, but most important, I want to respond with the word beautiful to call what God daily does in this world, for what it is. Sure we may have splattered paint across His masterpiece, but He is continually restoring and renewing His creation into a beautiful masterpiece, and I want to show others this by pointing out its beauty.