Some of the most beautiful things happen in the unexpected. Like taking a walk at night and seeing a shooting star race across the sky. Waking up early and to watch the sun come up and catching young fawns playing in a field. Or as what happened to me this morning when my three year old son climbed into our bed at 5 AM, snuggled up to my chest and whispered in his still sleepy, hushed voice, “Daddy I love you.You’re the best.” It was enough to cause me to put my agenda and plans of an early morning start on hold and simply lay there as my little boy hugged my arm and then wrapped his little arm around my chest and slipped back into a peaceful sleep. It was a moment of beauty that I did not expect nor will I forget.
The truth of the matter is that there is incredible beauty in the unexpected. That is not to say that there is not pain. There are those moments that are unexpected that carry with them intense pain and sorrow. And its not that these unexpected moments of pain happen more often than beauty, its that our moments of hurt, pain, and sorrow are so shocking that they burn themselves permanently into our memory. The unexpected beauty is often something very simple, very small, and easily missed. The reason our unexpected pain moments seem to occur more often is that they are large and not easily missed. Our moments of unexpected beauty seem to be rare because they are so easily missed.
It’s not that we miss the beauty, it’s that we miss the unexpected. In fact I think we are as quick to recognize the beauty of a moment as easily as we recognize the pain. We miss those moments of unexpected beauty because we are so keyed in on what needs to happen, where we are going, what we need to get accomplished. Our agendas and our calendars have us so pressed for time that we aren’t able to see those unexpected moments of beauty that are happening all around us more often than we realize.
Unexpected moments of pain force us to stop. They cause all of our plans and agendas to come to an immediate halt and bring us to a place where we have to take stock of our lives. This is why we are unable to miss unexpected pain. It’s so out of place with what we had been planning and working towards. But seeing those moments of unexpected beauty, that are often simple, small, and don’t put an immediate stop on what we are doing, we move right through them without ever noticing the power of the beautiful.
To see the unexpected beauty of life we need to live life in such a way that we have margin. It takes margin to be able to move through life not being pressed to move from one thing to the next. It takes margin to slow down and even stop to allow the unexpected to enter our lives instead of just move past.
It’s not easy. It takes a dedication to build margin into our lives. It requires space to let the unexpected happen. It requires our agendas have wiggle room that sees the beauty that is in unexpected instead of the unexpected being an unwelcome interruption.
So as the week is coming to a close, don’t race through trying to simply “get to the weekend. Slow down. Give space for margin. Keep an awareness that unexpected beauty is all around you and can enter your life at any given moment. Savor those moments for the depth and beauty they offer. Treasure them. For they will happen in an unexpected and be gone just as quickly.
