The Beauty of Details

I am a person who admires details. When I go to events, I determine how important the event was based on the attention to detail it was given. At a given event I may pick up a program, for example, and search to see if the program has a personal touch or a copy-and-paste feel? What is the weight of the paper? How does the paper feel? Smooth, rough? Is the paper a color? What color-feel does it express? What font was chosen? Plain old boring fonts I can name or unique fonts that are an expression of the event itself? Is there color in the font itself? Bold, italic?

This "measuring-up" I do everywhere I go may seem exhausting to other personalities, but for me, it is my constant companion. I investigate details in everything. In a few quick seconds I size-up situations, people, events based on the details I see, hear and feel.

When I was a little girl my mom would take us for walks. She remembers being frustrated with me because I walked so slow while my brother and sister were running off ahead of her. I would stop and pick up flowers, look at bugs, and watch the wind blow. As a mom I can understand her frustration, but I also look back with fondness on that little girl who was so fascinated by the details and designs in nature that it caused her to stop and admire the beauty.

A few years ago, I was working with a young man who had worked for hours on a logo for a sermon series he was about to begin with his high school students. I'll never forget him telling me his frustration for "wasting" so much of his time on the logo. His logo was amazing, but he couldn't rationalize spending that high of a percentage of his work-week on creating his awesome logo. He told me next time he was create a simple, boring logo so as not to waste his time when the kids really didn't care and parents never noticed his work. Ouch. Here was a person of detail, an eye for design, throwing in the towel for the sake of appeasing an ungrateful audience.

Numerous times in my career people have questioned why I do what I do. "Why do you work so hard?" "Why do you bring in real flowers when you can just buy fake ones?" "Why do you waste your time writing notes or signing your name?" "Why did you spend time on something no one will notice?" That last question is my favorite. "...no one will notice?" Perhaps what they mean is, "non-detailed people notice." These voices that demean details and devalue creativity argue against the logical side of my personal time and energy creating this overwhelming tug-of-war. Who will win? Logic or passion? Do I simply do the job and check the box like my colleague was falling into years ago? How long can I continue to wrestle with the question, "Would anyone notice if I didn't do a, b, or c?"

I go back to what I said at the very beginning- I am a person of detail. Perhaps no one else will notice, but I will. I will see details missing. I will see the hole where the flower should have been and for me personally, I will find the event shallow and not important. I am compelled to add details - even if I am the only one who sees!

Thankfully, I serve a God who shares my passion for details. His creation is limitless on its creative design and fantastic artistry. He has hidden beauty in nature that no human eye has ever seen and I have to wonder does that mean it is not important? Certainly not! Everything I do is for Him- for His glory and for His praise. I can rest knowing my detail-loving God sees. He sees me. He sees the little touches and work I do...and He smiles - and that, my friends, makes the details all worth while. Keep creating and keep adding details!

"For you created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well." Psalm 139:13 (Lots of tender-loving care and detail involved here!)