Tonight, after hosting the first inaugural Community Appreciation Dinner, I was walking back with one of my favorite students. She is a joy; she is sunshine. I was burdened with bags and boxes, but somehow mentioned Bible study as my next destination.

“You’re going there right now?” she said.
“Yes! You should come… do you want to come?” I asked.
“Oh, I have to write a paper for tomorrow. Shoot. Is it every Monday? What about next week?” she asked.
“Yes, it will be next week. Man! I can’t believe I haven’t asked you before!” I said.

And that was it. I made it to Bible study, unfashionably late, and looked at the scribbles on over-sized post-it notes. “Creation, Fall, Redemption, Our Response” it said.

The tears came – outside tears this time. I had just shared with my 6th grade girls on Friday that the most selfish thing we can do with the Gospel is to keep it to ourselves.

And what a fool I’ve been! These aren’t just words in Romans and John and 1 Peter. These words – these scribbles – are LIFE. God have mercy on me when I make life about less than the Gospel! A whole semester and only now the invitation is an outward, open gesture.

Lots of outward tears this time. Weeping for those without life.

It seems a week since I woke this morning! I woke up for morning church, greeted by the bright sun. I have been carpooling with my beautiful neighbor and her children Ingrid and Oliver. This Sunday was special because Bernardo, her husband, joined us.

We studied James 1:2-8 and praise the Lord! Afterward, Bernardo had so many questions about the pastors, the prayers, and the real-life application. I was praising God all the time for His tearing the curtain and allowing us to come into community with Him. How beautiful and glorious and dreadfully undeserved! But, every time I explain or hear our salvation my inside weeps with joy.

After church we decided to check out an art fair downtown and it turned into an afternoon event! We perused the artist’s tents lining the streets and lingered to stare at creativity in color and form. My mind wandered, danced across the poses of pain and pretense. I know little of art, except that my soul seems to sense beauty as it reflects my Savior… when I see before me a new window opened to breathe in even more of my Creator.

Yet, as I listened in the Gathering service, I settled down slowly, as a feather falls. Looking about I saw these gifts and reflections fall solidly in the periphery. My heart stretched toward the small gate on the narrow road because this is LIFE. Everything else – absolutely everything – is penultimate. Though beautiful reflections are indeed signs of an even greater and more glorious Creator, they are still merely signs. Every gift points not to itself, but to its GIVER. And how much MORE wonderful must the GIVER be to give such gifts?

Through the perfect sacrifice of Christ, we have been given an inheritance greater than any gift earth could ever hold. We have been given GOD. When I heard this tonight, all the gratitude and awe redirected to its rightful place, whirled up in exaltation to a throne on high where my Savior resides.

I know this sounds pompous and lame… But if you had just spent the last 4 hours with the same girls I did, you would walk away with the same impression: beautiful.

Tonight Dawn and I took the bible study girls to a cemetery. We spent some time reflecting on some saints of the faith, people we see as pilgrims and as sojourners. We talked about Corrie Ten Boom and the drastic, faith-filled measures she went through to proclaim Christ in her life, even in the concentration camps. We talked about William Wilberforce who, after experiencing redemption, fought to make his passion for speaking a part of his new life in Christ. His 18 years of toil finally brought the Slave Trade Act, but not without suffering.

Of all the saints and all the pilgrims, one humble figure surpassed all and that is the person of Jesus Christ. Holy and blameless, we will never find a better example of what it means to live purely to the glory of God.

We reflected on how we might respond to Jesus’ last words in the Great Commission. How exactly are we to go out, making disciples of all nations? What does that mean outside this ‘reflective’ conversations in a world that forgets to stop to breathe?

Looking around the cemetery, we saw rows and rows of flowers. Some were fresh, others fake, others old and weathered. In each of those graves rested someone whose physical body had passed. Isaiah 40:8 says, “The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of the Lord is forever.” Everything, absolutely everything in this world will pass away, except for the word of God. Our souls are preserved only because (and if) the Spirit is alive in us.

If our lives are built on anything other than the person and work of Jesus Christ… if we try to fulfill the Great Commission any other way (with gold or silver or hay or wood), our lives will count for nothing. But, if we live as Paul encourages the ministers of the new covenant in 2 Corinthians 2:14-16,

But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him. For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life.

Before people come to our graves and lay flowers in remembrance we can exude the fragrance of the knowledge of him. Though the flowers fade and the grass withers, the word of the Lord stands forever. The legacies of saints remains because they purposed their lives to reflect something greater – something outside this world. We, too, can decide for our lives to point to something greater… and the eternal fragrance will be unmistakable.

After our beautiful reflection in the cemetery we reconvened at Magnolia Cafe to chat about life. We all poured in to one another with joy and grace. We made very close friends with our server, with whom we shared that it was the first meeting of the gloriously beautiful club. We ended up asking him what it would take to be a part of the club and he said,

“well, evidently you have to be gloriously beautiful… but not wear too much makeup…apparently… and glow. .. you have to glow. okay.”

And that about sums it up, folks. Weems (for this is what his friends affectionately called him) saw exactly what we see that makes us gloriously beautiful – the unique glow of God our Creator, Christ our Redeemer, and the Spirit our Guide.

So, with a little song and dance we concluded the first meeting of the gloriously beautiful club. But, my, how I hope for there to be many, many more.