Our Beauty Is In The Whole Picture Not In The Parts

​I took a 5-mile hike on the Virginia Creeper Trail yesterday. It wasn't lost on me that as I hiked this beautiful section of the trail a mere 18 miles ahead of me the trail has been destroyed and made impassable by the remnants of hurricane Helene.

One trail. One part intact and full of beauty. One part broken and torn to bits.

I found myself thinking about life.

My life, to be honest.

One part intact and full of beauty, the other part broken and torn to bits. I suppose to at least some degree that describes us all.

In my work I get to hear a lot about people's broken and torn parts. I get to hear the parts of themselves that they themselves don't consider very beautiful at all. And yet, as I listen to them, as I fully take in their stories, I often am left thinking those are some of their most beautiful parts.

Not because they are without pain. Not because I would wish those parts on anyone else. But because those broken parts have been the building blocks of some of the most beautifully intact parts of people I've ever had the chance to interact with.

I think we do that to ourselves too much. Try to sort out our broken and together parts. We begin to wonder if the way to beauty is gathering up as much of one part of us as we can while leaving as much of that other part of us as we can behind. When maybe our greatest beauty is found in embracing the beauty in the whole of us.

I don't know what will become of the Virginia Creeper Trail, especially the badly broken parts. Maybe they will repair it. Maybe they will reroute parts of it. And maybe, indeed, some parts will simply become part of the trail's history, its memory.

But nature is resilient. Nature is the queen of adapt and rebuild.

And maybe I am the king.

There are sure parts of my trail that have been destroyed by hurricanes in my life. But they are a part of this beautifully intact trail I walk in life today. A trail I walk not in spite of the storms, but because of them.

Because I have rebuilt and adapted.

Over and over.

And there is beauty in that. Strength, not weakness.

I felt that about the Creeper Trail yesterday. I felt, this is a beautiful trail. Not THIS part, but ALL of it.

The whole trail.

The whole and the broken.

We're a lot like nature, you know.

Our beauty is in the whole picture, not in the parts.