There we sat, three or four of us on rickety wooden stools, bare feet pressed into the rough cement, hands cupped around mugs of thick, gritty tea, and eyes filled with awe as we listened to our new friend, who we will call Sa'diyya, share her story with us. We sat on a simple, open rooftop surrounded by the Himalayan mountains and above the hum of the big city's traffic. We looked into Sa'diyya's eyes and saw that she had touched something profound.

As we sipped on our tea, Sa'diyya quietly began to share that just a few years before, her body had been ridden with tumors. There was no hope for her, and doctors had all but given up. Despite being born into a devout Hindu family and in a region with very few believers, she encountered a few Christians who introduced her to Jesus, and she fully surrendered her life to him. Shortly after, in a way that doctors couldn't explain, Sa'diyya's body was completely healed of the tumors. Not only was her body healed, but her heart was set on fire with a love that she had never experienced before. But, despite the liberation that had come to both her heart and her physical frame, her family forbade her from following Christ and left her with the option of either denying Him or being forced to leave their home. She did the only thing that she could do. She bore the shame and was thrown out of her father's house.

Still, in the midst of the pain and difficulty, there was a light that shone in Sa'diyya's eyes. Day after day, she would take every possible minute to slip away and meet Jesus in prayer. In a way that I imagine is a dim picture of what happened when Moses came down from the mountain, she would emerge to continue her day's work with a face that glowed with joy and the presence of God. Not only had Jesus healed her from the inside out, but she had tasted of the sustaining, transforming, exhilarating beauty of Jesus.

It's easy to think these incredible encounters with the beauty of Jesus are primarily isolated to those who have walked through deep valleys and difficulties, live in remote villages tucked away in the mountains, or have nothing left to cling to. There could be nothing further from the truth. We have access to an encounter with His beautiful heart and those kind eyes at any moment that we turn our hearts to him. Just as it did in Sa'diyya's life, seeing His beauty will change everything.

What is a one way that you can pursue seeing the beauty of Jesus today?