Stopping at Beautiful.

This was painted on a day that felt there was a lot of expectation from the world on how one was supposed to feel and behave on that day. Other people were getting together and celebrating, but to me it felt like a day to go into my studio and paint. This is the result. It was painted in such a way that if I felt that a line or a mark was a mistake, I changed direction in how I was applying the medium to the canvas and started again in a new place, in a new way. And when it felt beautiful I kept that going. Beautiful was a guiding theme for this piece. So how is it "Stopping at Beautiful" if I only stopped when I made a mark that didn't feel right? When I stopped and looked at all the good marks I had made, all the brush strokes that gave me joy, I was stopping at beautiful. I stopped looking at the growing process of it and focused instead letting my gaze stop at only the beautiful colours and circles and lines. And so I let go of the expectation of perfection and let my heart rest on what was truly wonderful to me. I feel like this is such a parallel to our spiritual walk. We can get so caught up with the expectations of others that we delay or even forget to go to our secret place from God that fills us up. And even when we do, we can focus on all our missteps instead of how far we have come. We all do things that are not a joy unto the Lord, but instead of staying stuck there, let us set our hearts not so much on what we have accomplished, but what beauty God has truly displayed through our lives through our relationship with Him. This is where He gets the praise. This is where He gets the worship. And this is where we are inspired and encouraged to keep going in our walk of faith. We see His faithfulness and we set our hearts again on Him.