Beauty can save a life

Beauty isn’t something you hold—it’s who you become.

The morning started perfectly.

It was 1998, our first Thanksgiving in our freshly restored Victorian home in Napa, California. Hardwood floors glowing. The table stretched long and dressed for dinner, set for exactly fourteen people. The silver polished. Candles ready to burn down to soft pools of wax.

And then the phone rang.

My mother said some family had arrived in town unexpectedly—three extra guests, possibly four. And something in me snapped. A tightness shot from head to toe. How could we squeeze in more chairs? The plates wouldn’t match. The table would look cluttered. The perfect scene I’d built in my mind was coming apart.

The day—ruined.

Looking back, it’s embarrassing. A few extra people at a holiday meal should have felt like a gift. But my heart was small then, rigid and afraid. Beauty, to me, meant control. Perfection. Carefully arranged appearances that proved…what, exactly? That I was enough?

I didn’t know it then, but I was starving for a different kind of beauty. And since then, I’ve come to believe something simple but life-changing:

Beauty can save a life.

Not the beauty we scroll past on screens—the sunsets, the designer kitchens, the faces with perfect symmetry. But the beauty you feel deep in your chest. The beauty of love made visible. The beauty that lifts your eyes when you’re drowning.

I never used to think much about God—or about pairing Him with beauty. I thought following God was a simple trade:

Be good enough.
Play the part and say the right words.
Hope you earn a ticket to heaven when you die.

But I was wrong.

A few years ago, I had an encounter that changed me completely. It wasn’t in a church. It was in ordinary daylight along the side of a river near my house in Maine.

And suddenly, there was Presence. It felt as if Someone was breathing life into places in my soul I’d let die. It took me a while to understand it, but now I know: real love is beauty—and it changes you. Not by force, but because your heart finally wants different things. This kind of beauty flows from love, not fear.

I used to cling to what I thought was beautiful to convince myself I was okay. The right house. The perfect holiday. The curated life.

Now I know the truth: beauty isn’t something you own. Beauty is something you become. And the deepest beauty I’ve ever seen is found in the rough timber and iron nails that turned death into life.

A few months ago, here in Maine, I started inviting friends over for something I call Sunday Supper. We sit around my dining table, candles flickering low, simple food on mismatched plates. We talk about love. About faith. About where we see God moving in our messes.

One evening, a guest called just before dinner. They had two friends visiting from out of town. Could they come? Without thinking, I said, “Of course.” That night, the conversation wove new friendships. Strangers shared stories of loss and hope. I remember leaning back in my chair, smiling, feeling the quiet weight of something sacred.

It was beauty.

Not the curated kind—but the kind born of surrender.

I look back at that young man in Napa, panicked over three extra chairs. I wish he’d known beauty isn’t fragile—that it doesn’t crack when life goes off script.

I wish he’d known that sometimes the interruption is the blessing. Because beauty isn’t seen, it’s lived.

So yes—beauty can save a life.

Because He saved mine.