beauty?

"It's SO beautiful, Mommy!"
We were driving along a congested Amman street a few days ago, Abby, Hanna and I, on our way to our helper's home for her birthday party. I quickly scanned the landscape around us to see what my exuberant five year old saw that peaked her interest. Dust-colored apartment buildings, empty lots with weeds, garbage strewn about...a crumbling wall. Hm.
"It's SO beautiful, Mommy!" she repeated. "Every city we've lived in!"
"Even Jordan?" I asked, both skeptical and curious.
"Yes, Mama! The colorful flowers we see, the trees..."  I looked around, and sure enough, a few palm trees planted along the dividing wall between lines of traffic and in window boxes up in the apartments, some flush red geraniums.
"...and ALL the animals we see-- the donkeys, the camels, the cats!" I pictured the mangy donkeys we sometimes see plodding along back streets in the city, burdened with baskets of fresh cilantro and oregano. Atop these beasts of burden, a boy or two with a whip in hand and bare feet. Then the camels dotting the sandy landscape of the Desert Road from the Dead Sea to the port of Aqaba. Sometimes, we even see them riding in the backs of pick up trucks, for reasons not apparent to us. Lastly, the ubiquitous stray cat residing in garbage dumpsters and...on our porch swing.
Abby wasn't done. "Even the buildings are beautiful, Mommy!"
I was silent. How is it that a five-year-old can silence you so quickly? In an instant, I saw the faith, the wisdom of a child that Jesus talked about.
When I look around me here, I don't see beauty most days. I see neglect, poor planning and poverty. I see mangy donkeys and cats with matted fur scrounging for food. I see unfinished buildings and poor urban planning.
But my daughter, she chooses to see beauty. She chooses to mine the lovely, the admirable qualities for what they are.
Is this what we lose as we get older and gain worldly wisdom about the hard edge of life. We let the world's cynicism and jaded view of reality slip over our eyes instead of God's perspective?
From Paul's letter to the Philippians: " Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things..."
I pray this every night over Abby after she complained about having bad dreams. What a gracious God we have, who gives us what we ask for-- and more. Eyes to see the beauty amid the ashes, even amid the fallen, ugliness of the world as it can appear at times. Eyes to call out beauty, loveliness and purity.
Abba, give me these eyes to see! Thank you for giving me children who remind me of these simple truths.

soli deo gloria