An Overwhelming Beauty: Reflection On God’s Creation By A Young Girl
By Jessica Brodie
Right now I’ve been reading a lot about stress and angst—how to tame it, transcend it, and overcome it. Between COVID and back to school health concerns, it’s not exactly uplifting stuff.
But recently, getting my preteen daughter’s room organized for a new school year, we came across a poem she wrote in class a couple years ago. The assignment required the kids. Then fifth graders, to gaze awhile at “Wheat Field with Cypresses,” an 1889 landscape painting by the post-Impressionist artist Vincent Van Gogh, then write a reflection about it.
Her work startled me, for it captured not only the sadness and longing evident in the painting but the way they are juxtaposed against the swirl of vibrant colors.
And by the way, she was only 10 when she wrote it.
“I guess I wanted to say something good about God and the world He created,” my daughter Avery, now 12, told me when I asked her why and where it came from. “Sometimes things are hard, but we can look around us and bask in all that beauty, and somehow feel better.”
Wise words from one so young. I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Avery struggles with anxiety, so she knows a bit about what it means to struggle and have to dig deep to overcome. And so today, I offer her words to you as a comfort.
God’s gift of creation isn’t merely a place for us to live. The brilliant colors and textures are there as a gift for us to bask in, to take comfort in, even on days when despair threatens.
Sometimes it takes a child and their unique view of the world to open our eyes to what God needs us to see.
As Jesus said in the Gospel of Matthew, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me” (Matthew 18:3-5 NIV).
Here is the picture Avery based her poem on:
And here are Avery’s words. I hope they speak to you as much as they spoke to me:
Wheat Field with Cypresses: An Overwhelming Beauty
By Avery Connor
A quiet afternoon comes,
The view surprising me.
I open my tired eyes,
Looking at
The different shades of color.
Calm clouds fill the sky,
No sound
Almost as if
Their mouths were locked
So tightly
They couldn’t open.
Big, smoky mountains lie in rows,
Like crowded toys on a shelf.
Wanting to get out,
Wanting to have an adventure,
But they can’t.
They can’t move.
Almost like they’re glued.
Bushes stick out,
Some soft
Some spiky
Behind them lay tufts of grass
Hiding
Scared to come out
Into the scary world.
It’s so delicate,
So fragile.
One touch,
One life lost.
Tall trees stand
Wanting a place in the world.
But everything controls it.
The wind shakes it,
Forcing it back and forth,
Back and forth.
When rain comes, the tree has no protection,
Nowhere to go.
The wheat field,
So beautiful,
Always swaying side to side.
The colors, golden brown,
Blend together
Like colors on an artwork piece
So beautiful
But always squished
And stiff.
A bed of flowers stands
So tiny but so bold.
The flowers seem so
Unreal, but they aren’t.
They beauty of everything
Overwhelms me.
But at the same time,
It relieves me.
Away from everything stressful.
Away from everything bad.
But no negativity today.
Today is so free.
Free.
Such a wonderful world.
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