Raising Maidens: Embracing the Beautiful Ordinary

It's hard to believe that a view like this can be overlooked by
anyone, but when it's your everyday ordinary, it can!

All too often I have come to find that there is beauty all around that completely goes unnoticed by me. Whether it's the way that the water drips off our roof on a rainy day, or my little daughter's tiny fingers carefully attempting to pick up the microscopic dust specks from the floor - beauty is a constant thread in our daily, ordinary lives. This thought occurred to me the other day as we were making a Costco run. Ordinary? Yes. Beautiful? Definitely. Before you start to think that I have some weird obsession with Costco (which may or may not be true by the way), let me explain. The road that we take to get to Costco runs right along the coast of Oahu's beautiful shoreline. Often I'm so consumed with thinking about our grocery list at this point and barely even notice the blue ocean and white shores. I completely dismiss the green mountains - or the huge crater, Koko Head, that Costco sits next to. You may be finding it hard to believe that one can become so spoiled and blind as to take these obviously breathtaking scenes for granted, but you can - and you do it too! Sadly, extraordinarily beautiful things are so quick to become ordinary in our eyes.
You may remember from our last blog update that we mentioned that we do not own a car at the present. This obviously results in us walking or biking most of the time when we need to go grocery shopping or catching a ride from someone once in a while. While sometimes I will admit that it is a pain to have to lug fifty pounds of groceries from the store back home with a baby in tow, most of the time I am so thankful for this time in our lives where we have been given the opportunity to "stop and smell the roses." Walking places not only makes you slow down and take things in around you, but it also makes you so much more aware of the beauty around you when you do have a car to take you to new, "unreachable" places. That was the case on this particular day this past week.
Driving to Costco may seem like merely an errand to many people - and most of the time, that's exactly what it is to us. But on this day, we set aside time to actually stop off and embrace the beauty around us. We found that once we were actually taking the initiative to stop and really take a look around us, the beauty surrounding us was unmistakable. It's as if in the rush of the day to day, we get so caught up in the moment that we lose focus on the bigger picture and bypass the joy that we could be getting from God's Creation. For me, it felt as though I had had the beauty around me on "mute," and when I stopped to take a look around me, it was overpowering - screaming at me from everywhere!
Since then, I've enjoyed taking the time to pause and revel in the little everyday moments that I have as a stay-at-home mommy and wife. It's been such a joy to simply catch my little girl's eye and smile at her, studying her beautiful little face as she smiles back at me.
So, all that to say, maybe your everyday ordinary has become so loud that you have muted the beauty in the little, simple, trivial things around you. Don't let life get so busy that it flies by and before you know it, you have missed out on soaking in the beauty God has put into everything, big and small. I know I am guilty of that, and I hope to make more of an effort to embrace the beautiful ordinary on a daily basis.