Behold! The beauty of God!

So...I volunteer at a shelter for people who are without a home and have only a few months or days left to live called the Abbie Hunt Bryce Home. And it is in this place I have experienced God in a very tangible and real way.
I think so often as we try to be Jesus to the people around us, we so often miss seeing Jesus. Maybe it is because we are so inwardly focused, and have complicated love and the Gospel so much, that while we may see beauty that is staring us in the face, we rarely have the time to behold the hidden beauty which longs to imprint our souls forever.
I have fallen in love with a resident at this home and though she does not yet know Jesus or want to have anything to do with "Religion", in her I see the glory of God. The Word says we were created in the image of God, literally in His shadow. And I see the shadow of God in this woman. Her teeth and hair fall out, her frail body violently shakes at times, outwardly she wastes away...and I behold her beauty. Knit together in her mothers womb, she is fearfully and wonderfully made!
In this woman, being devoured by AIDS, I see Jesus. As I sit with her in a dirty smokeroom and light her cigarettes, I behold the beuaty of God. Yes, he is found in the most unlikely places...He is mysterious, and he is a hidden beauty, one easily missed. For he came as a poor boy, lying in a dirty eating trough for dirty animals, and so often he is the one we walk right by.
May we be people who long to look into, who behold the hidden, mysterious and most unlikely beauty of God.