Surprising Beauty

My wife looks surprisingly beautiful tonight. Please don't take that wrong. She is beautiful almost every minute of the day. But there are some days when I'm reminded just how beautiful she really is. It's just an ordinary day. She's still wearing her work clothes -- black dress slacks and a purple top. Her hair isn't done much differently than normal. But there's just something about 'her today which sets her apart. It's surprising when something just leaps right out at you, and maybe that's why I say she looks surprisingly beautiful.

There are times when I've expected her to be beautiful. I knew that when she walked down the aisle in her wedding dress that she would be spectacular, and she was. But I wasn't surprised. I remember a day six months afterward when I was first surprised by my wife's beauty. It was a Christmas party for the radio station I was working for at the time. I had turned in my two week notice, and my wife and I were preparing to move back to Indiana. For the first half year of our married life we were living six hours from any family. But we were ready to move back and my wife was thrilled about it. That night she wore a winter white outfit with gold earrings set against her black hair and pink complexion. The smile on her face was that of a happy woman, full of expectation about the future and content in her life. That whole evening I kept looking at us in mirrors, somehow unsure that I could have ever hoped to have married a woman this beautiful.

There have been other days when I have been surprised by this woman's beauty, but there is something special today. I don't know why. But I'm glad I'm here to see it and experience it.

I'm not surprised easily. But there are days when God surprises me with His beauty as well. I sense the unexpected blessing of a friend's words. I feel the love of my son as he asks for my help. I see the majesty of a clear, starry night or of a sunset with zillions of pink and purple hues brushed across the horizon. And I become more fully aware of His direction and instruction while reading words written thousands of years ago to another man who saw His surprising beauty. Sure, He's beautiful all the time, but there are just some days when that beauty surprises me.