Scary, but Beautiful

I was awaken at 5am this morning and looked at the window to see flashes of light streaming in through the blinds. I emerged from my bed to find its source and saw a huge lightning storm approaching my house. I gazed in awe at the lightning bolts that stretched from the heavens to the earth. I was astounded with their brightness and their expanse across the sky. It was beautiful and it reminded me of a Psalm that I have been memorizing this week.

"O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory
above the heavens...
When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place..."

I had never seen lightning like this in years. As I stood there staring out my window, the storm began to get closer. The slight rumbles of thunder started to sound more often and slightly louder. The lightning bolts were getting closer and closer to my house. It started to rain. The beauty which I was just captivated with now started to scare me. That lightning, though beautiful, also held such enormous amount of destructive power and I feared it would strike a tree or house nearby. This paradox left me deep in thought. The lightning was both scary and beautiful. It made me think about my life. It's truly scary at times. When I look at certain situations and circumstances up close, they terrify me and I start to focus on the destructive powers those situations might have on my life. But at the same time, if I take a step back from my life and look at the whole picture, there is such beauty in it all. I start to see how God is using some of those scary situations for the better, and He is starting to mold new growth in areas where I use to only see destruction. God has the power to take the scary and make it beautiful if we only put our trust in Him and let Him take control of our lives. But it's also a matter of perspective. I can choose to stay narrow-visioned and pessimistic and see the areas of my life that scare me and threaten me as destructive....OR I can choose to take a step back from it all and see the good in it and see how God is using those areas of my life to better me and further His Kingdom. So if you find yourself in fear by a life circumstance, take another look and find the beauty in it all, because I promise you it's there if God is involved.