I work at a university and if any of you have ever taken the time to study typical university flooring, it isn’t exceptional. Occassionally someone will decorate an entryway into the library or a conference room with some ornate design, but for the most part, university flooring is fairly…plain, or so I thought.

Today, I had to pick up my three oldest kids from school and take them to work with me for a few minutes near the end of the day. As I held five-year old Lydia’s hand and helped her up the stairs, she looked down at the gray, green, and white speckled floor and said, “This floor is so pretty.”

How many of you went back to read the colors I just described? Yes, I wrote light gray, pale green, and white….pretty? I’m praying she’s showing optimistic character traits.

It reminded of a time when my son Aaron was five and we were driving past Charlotte, NC. He looked out the window and said, “Oh look the clouds are beautiful. The skyscrapers are beautiful. The trees are beautiful. Oh look, Mama, that broken down car is beautiful.” At this point I was beginning to wonder if he knew the definition of ‘beautiful’, but Lydia and Aaron have taught me a good lesson.

It’s too often in life that we either don’t stop and notice the beauty around us, or get so bogged down with ‘big stuff’ in life, that the simple pleasures disappear into a gray-green-white speckled floor. We so quickly forget what Isaiah writes, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. The whole earth is full of His glory.”

Does this include university flooring and skyscrapers? Well, God created the people who made those things and put those thoughts into the magnificent creation of the human mind. So….in a way, yes he did.

In recent memory, how many times have you stopped to enjoy the fascinating color hues of a fading sunset, or the subtle and gentle illumination of millions of stars as day blackens into night, or the swirling array of a rainbow of fall leaves as the wind lifts them up into a miniature whirlwind.

How many times have you reveled in the laughter of your child or the fascination of your infant’s newest discovery? Gee, right now sometimes, I get amazed when I see the bottom of the laundry bin.

The next time we feel weighed down from the heaviness of the everyday, may we find glimpses of God’s beauty in the ordinary. May the knowledge that the same Creator God, who formed the stars, and sunset, and the fall leaves, formed you…..for His glory…..for His pleasure and may we in turn take pleasure in Him.