Pieta

Adele is currently drawing Michelangelo's Pieta. 

These are the kinds of things that I walk in to the room to find my daughters doing, and it takes my breath away. 

And then I give glory to God for the beauty that fills my life. 

This image means a lot to me, personally. 

I was a high school freshman, a year older than Adele is now, when I saw a photo of the Pieta in my history textbook. 

We were studying the Middle Ages and even though the textbook called it the Dark Ages and had a decidedly negative view of that period, the age had a radiance that couldn't be suppressed, and my imagination was set aflame! 

The photo of the Pieta in the textbook was grainy, black and white, and tiny- maybe two inches wide and an inch high. 

Nevertheless...

I wept. 

Right there in history class with my head bent low over the text. 

I don't remember being embarrassed.

Interestingly, I remember that it was like I was hardly there to be seen.

I understand now why I was so affected.  

I was beauty-starved back then. 

I was a typical modern teen who spent more time at the mall than in museums.  

That masterpiece was a tiny window into the transcendent world. 

It was inches wide but large enough for God to reach through and touch my heart. 

I should say that the photo Adele has of the Pieta is large.

The figures are so sharp, they appear to be breathing.  

He fills my life with good things. 

He fills my life with Himself.