“You have a beautiful smile,” someone said.

“I love your laugh,” I heard another say a few days later.

“You exude beauty!” a friend told me, looking right into my eyes.

I could hardly take it in. They were talking about me and my beauty. Do they see what God sees? I imagined God watching these interactions with the same delight a parent feels when their child finds the Easter basket they have hidden.

God loves to hide things for us to discover.  ^“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field,” Jesus said. “When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.” Mathematician Bernhard Riemann once said, “I did not invent those pairs of differential equations. I found them in the world where God had hidden them.”

What am I hearing? God has made many things–rivers, flowers, people–with obvious beauty that stuns us into silence. But God also tucks beauty away for us to discover in places we would never think to look–a hospital room, a crowded bus, our own reflection.

No one has ever stopped me on the street and said, “Gee, you’re beautiful.” My face will never be on the cover of a fashion magazine, nor will it launch a thousand ships. But, I’m discovering, that doesn’t mean I’m not beautiful.

God has hidden beauty in all of us. I enjoy discovering it in others, and I’m starting to believe they enjoy finding beauty in me.

From now on I will tell you of new things,
    of hidden things unknown to you.
–Isaiah 48:6 (NIV)

Credits and references:
Banner image: “Who Am I?” by Megan Yungwirth. Used with permission.
Hermit Crab by Anne Yungwirth. Used with permission.
Fawn in the Undergrowth by Ed Dahl. Used with permission. Matthew 13:44 (NIV).
Kathleen Norris quoted Bernhard Riemann at a writing workshop June 13, 2015 at Vancouver School of Theology.

© Esther Hizsa, An Everyday Pilgrim, 2015.
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without permission from Esther Hizsa is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used provided there is a link to the original content and credit is given as follows: © Esther Hizsa, An Everyday Pilgrim 2013, 2014, 2015.  http://www.estherhizsa.wordpress.com