Be In Awe of Beauty

I Stand in Awe LYRICS

Item #  M4030-05-58

By Mark Altrogge

These lyrics accompany the song I Stand In Awe from the I Stand In Awe album.

Lyrics

You are beautiful beyond description
Too marvelous for words
Too wonderful for comprehension
Like nothing ever seen or heard
Who can grasp Your infinite wisdom?
Who can fathom the depth of Your love?
You are beautiful beyond description
Majesty, enthroned above

And I stand, I stand in awe of You
I stand, I stand in awe of You
Holy God, to whom all praise is due
I stand in awe of You

You are beautiful beyond description
Yet God crushed You for my sin
In agony and deep affliction
Cut off that I might enter in
Who can grasp such tender compassion?
Who can fathom this mercy so free?
You are beautiful beyond description
Lamb of God who died for me

© 1986 Sovereign Grace Praise (BMI).

Remember the Turtle

Carefully I move the framed photos and cards off my dresser. Dust flies everywhere - I hadn't touched these items in awhile, admittedly - as I make space for a large crystal lamp. As I lift the heavy object up onto my dresser, the hanging crystals gently clink together and create music. Music to my ears.

Now that the lamp is situated, I can return the cards and photos to their places. As I dust each item and put it back, one of them catches my eye. It's a beautiful mahogany music box SHE left me. There's a layer of dust on the lid - a twinge of guilt hits me - she wouldn't like to see it sitting unused on a shelf.

I clean the dust off and feel nostalgic. It's been three years - but still, I miss her. As I open the lid, memories flood back. She used to say "Oh dear" after laughing at something. Sometimes I got to ride in the car next to her, in between the driver's seat and the passenger's seat. She was always a smart dresser. She loved her husband. She once told my sister her shoes were "sexy."

It's nearly midnight and I don't want to disturb the people on the other side of the wall, but I really want to see if the music box still plays. I turn it over to find the wind-up... and another memory hits me like a ton of bricks.

We visited their apartment often for an afternoon of swimming in the pool, watching golf on TV, and playing Norwegian poker. At some point during every visit, normally when Grandpa fell asleep in his chair, I would end up in their bedroom gazing down at a tiny turtle statuette on their side table.

I loved that trinket. If you could wind it up, the turtle would move, but my fingers were too little and weak to do it. I would bring her into their room and point at the turtle, begging her to wind it for me, which she almost always did. One day I remember she wound it so many times, a small dent appeared in her thumb.

Grandma was a woman of faith. She loved her family, went to church faithfully, and was a wonderful companion to her husband. I think of Titus 2 when I think of her.

Speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine... that the older women be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things. (v. 1-3)

 My grandmother to a tee. She taught that family was important, that fellowship with believers was crucial, that it was good to laugh.

I wind the music box and listen to the melody of a Schubert piece fill my bedroom. I weep. I tell myself I'll see her again soon.

Beauty comes in all shapes and sizes - and for me, for nineteen years, it came in the form of a tiny white-haired woman named Marian.

- Grace Marita

Haiyophi

"Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised."

Let's dissect, shall we?

Proverbs 31:30. Very well-known within the church, to be sure. I'd venture most women my age have this verse written on a notecare and taped to their mirror. I don't, but after doing some reading from http://studylight.org/, maybe I should. Here's what Adam Clark wrote in his commentary regarding Prov. 31:30.

Charm is deceptive...

"1. Favour, chen, grace of manner may be deceitful, many a fair appearance of this kind is put on, assumed for certain secular or more unworthy purposes; it is learned by painful drilling in polished seminaries, and, being the effect of mere physical discipline, it continues while the restraint lasts; but it is sheker, a lie, a mere semblance, an outward varnish. It is not the effect of internal moral regulation; it is an outside, at which the inside murmurs; and which, because not ingenuous, is a burden to itself. "

And beauty is fleeting...

"2. Beauty, haiyophi, elegance of shape, symmetry of features, dignity of mien, and beauty of countenance, are all hebel, vanity; sickness impairs them, suffering deranges them, and death destroys them."

But a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.

"3. 'But a woman that feareth the Lord,' that possesses true religion, has that grace that harmonizes the soul, that purifies and refines all the tempers and passions, and that ornament of beauty, a meek and quiet mind, which in the sight of God is of great price-

She shall be praised.
This is the lasting grace, the unfading beauty."

WOW. There's a lot here, but let me just focus on a few key points.

 - A woman who fears the LORD possesses true religion. See James 1:27.
 - Physical beauty, referred to here as haiyophi, also includes symmetrical features. The very thing that I sought after is the very thing that will fade with time.. meaning even if I achieved symmetry it would be gone in a matter of decades.
 - Clark writes that charm can be deceptive because it's often put on for "secular or more unworthy purposes." As women, we don't always seek to manipulate with our charm. But other times our need to control rises up and combines with our fear of God not coming through for us, and we use it for "more unworthy purposes." That's why it's deceiving! Because sometimes it's manipulative, and sometimes it's not!

Here's what being a Proverbs 31 woman comes down to. Are we fueled by joy in our own fleeting haiyophi - or in God's?

- Grace Marita