Have you ever looked at something and been so struck by it that all you can do is stop and take it in? I do this almost every time I look at the sky. Whether it’s the sunrise, the sunset, the clouds, lightning, or the stars. The sky is one of my favorites of God’s creations.

Have you ever noticed how if you try to take a picture of something God made (the Grand Canyon or a rainbow or a sunset) and noticed that the picture just doesn’t quite do it justice? I feel like that’s God’s copyright on His creation, saying that nothing can capture the beauty He created. He is the ultimate Creator. He is the origin of creativity and beauty.

My obsession with the sky is sometimes a hazard. For example, while I was driving westward to California, the sun was rising in my rearview mirror. I’m surprised I didn’t wake up with whiplash the next day because I couldn’t stop rapidly turning around and looking to see how beautiful it was. (Thank You, God, for protecting me and the other drivers!)

I eventually stopped my car and pulled over to take a picture of the sunrise rising behind the open Texan plains. However, the picture didn’t even come close to the real thing.

The picture doesn’t show you how, at the first hint of the sun’s appearance, suddenly the darkness begins to gather together, running from the coming dawn. It doesn’t portray the gradual progression of the deep firmament above transitioning from pitch black to a deep purple. It doesn’t show the colors dancing in between the clouds hovering just over the horizon. Just by looking at the picture, you’d be oblivious to the sudden breakthrough of warm colors like deep red, misty pink, and sharp orange. Then, finally, as in a crescendo, the brightest orb finally makes her appearance and sends a jolt straight to your heart. You are overwhelmed that suddenly a whole new day is before you, filled with opportunity and brightness and newness.

Pictures simply cannot capture that.

All my measly iPhone camera could take from the beauty before me was this:

It’s just not the same. Staring at this picture, you cannot feel the wind whisking across your face as your heart thunders in your chest, threatening to explode from gazing at the pure glory of our God.

(If you haven’t noticed, I have a hidden agenda of convincing more people to take the time to watch more sunsets.)

Anyway, since I was chasing the sun across the country, it took a while for the sunset to finally happen. It finally started descending while I was driving across the mountains in Arizona. Once again I made a futile attempt to capture the beauty that was before my eyes. I so badly wished that my eyes were straws so I could drink in the picture before me! (Sorry about that weird analogy.)

In comparison from the photo on my phone screen to what was in front of me, the difference was incomprehensible. I don’t even have the words to explain how majestic it was. Here’s the picture:

But my heart cries out in anguish because the lighting doesn’t correctly show any of the striking details. As the sun sank behind the distant mountains, the transitioning sky just took my breath away. I almost wrecked trying to capture it, and the picture still doesn’t even come close.

Later the next morning, after driving 26 hours from Louisiana to California, I stopped to try to get some energy and freshen up a bit. I still had another 4 hours left to drive, and I didn’t want to show up to my destination looking like a zombie.

Sitting in my car in some random Walmart parking lot, I looked into my mirror. I was immediately frustrated at the image that stared back at me. I hastily applied some makeup, desperately trying to make myself pleased with my reflection.

Out of the corner of my eye, the rising sun peeked over the horizon and shone on my face. I exasperatedly sighed because the sun’s intense light only brought more attention to the flaws on my face: my tired eyes, my acne breakouts, my enlarged pores. For a moment I just wanted the sun to go back down so that maybe people wouldn’t notice how terrible I looked.

In the midst of these thoughts, God spoke to me and said,

The sunlight on your face is My masterpiece shining on My masterpiece.

I quickly dismissed His voice. No, no, no, I am definitely not a masterpiece.

I look terrible. I probably don’t smell the greatest. I’m tired. My heart has tons of areas of brokenness. I struggle with being vulnerable with people. It’s really hard for me to find the bravery to speak when I’m in a group of people because I fear that nobody wants to hear what I want to say, so I normally just sit and listen. My body is not nice to look at. My personality isn’t as loud and fun and free and funny as others’. I don’t command attention when I walk into a room, and if I am talked over, I tend to shrink back into rejected silence. I secretly want to be friends with new people but I don’t feel like I’m an interesting or memorable person, so who would go out of their way to talk to me? I compare myself to others. I’m tenderhearted.  I’m selfish, scared, and in need of so much healing and sanctification – practically nothing like Jesus.

No, God, You are mistaken here.

Then God reminded me of Ephesians 2:10, which says plainly: “For we are his masterpiece, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Other translations replace “masterpiece” with “workmanship,” “handiwork,” “accomplishment,” “work of art,” and “creation.” I’m God’s work of art? Mmm, I don’t know.

My heart just can’t accept that truth just yet. The beauty displayed in sunrises, sunsets, and shooting stars isn’t even in the same vicinity as what looks back from my mirror.

Perhaps as I continue to walk with Abba and hide with Him in the secret cleft, my heart will accept it when He says, “You are altogether beautiful, my darling; there is no flaw in you” (Song of Solomon 4:7).