Tag: ugliness

Don’t Stoop to Their Level

Jennifred Jones

My mother said this many times to me growing up.

Somebody’d do something to me I didn’t like, call me names, write something bad about me, and I’d start to get mad and envision how I’d set the record straight – fight back – whatever I felt like to get even. Mom would hear me talking or see me thinking and say, “Don’t stoop to their level.”

Yes, why should I become like and do like what the other person did to me that I didn’t like? Sounds so basic but in a tiff, we can’t often see straight.

Personally, I think we need to shed a whole lot of the victim-hood mentality and stand up and be the bigger and better person. Be the example of how a good person responds to insult and berating. Be the example of how to go ahead with your life and make it a better life because of what you went through! Why not? Why shouldn’t you take the upper hand in your life? Why should you succumb to somebody else’s poor mouth and decisions? Of course it hurt, it was perhaps cruel, but we’re not in the eye for eye, tooth for tooth group. We’ve moved past that. I know it sounds tough, but it takes personal toughness to be the better person, and inside that’s really who we want to be.

Yes, we can triumph in adversity, see beauty in ugliness, and become peaceful in the storm. and it won’t always be easy, but we can learn and do it – little by little.

Let’s be the beacon on the hilltop – not fighting in the mud with accusers.

Step out of the mud. Don’t stoop to their level. That’s not who you are.

The Angst of Beauty

Jennifred Jones

Most beauty was created because of ugliness.

Many of the artists whose work we love…creating masterpieces which bring us joy and happiness and amazement…created during a time of doubt, unhappiness, great depression, personal trial and disappointment…even sickness. It was the beauty they saw in their mind and began to create that caused them to survive their turmoils.

Could beauty be the solution to many of our problems? Are we caught in the fog of ugliness and despair – unable to see the beauty all around us?

The soft baby bunny, the early morning singing of birds, the silver pussy willows announcing spring, the laugh of a small child, the hug of a friend, the clear blue sky, the color of a rock in the rain, a warm cup of tea and a candle in the evening.

What do you see? Through the angst of life, can you still see beauty? Can you envision it? Can you somehow cause yourself to promote more beauty? Can you be the glistening raindrop on a barren dry soil? Can you be the smile while hiding your own tears to a weary soul? Can you see and envision hope for a better day, a better tomorrow when all you see and hear is ugliness and ruin?

What has broken your heart so you can no longer see a good future? Can you take the broken pieces and build something new, something stronger, something so beautiful that all the brokenness and ruin no longer is seen? All that remains is the work of beauty you created. That is the beauty others will see. And it will inspire them to see beauty through their own brokenness.