A Decade of Godly Beauty
By Anthony Casperson
5-16-26

The ten-year anniversary. A decade of Theonerd.

It’s almost unbelievable that God has been using me in this place for so long. These years have been filled with amazing spiritual growth and encouraging words. But they’ve also included extended periods of pain and doubts that this whole ministry could ever go on.

As all of my anniversary blogs remind us, this website started as a result of working through my depression and anxiety. Mental struggles that came about because of feeling like I had been wasting my life and education in a job that had nothing to do with any of it.

I’d felt stuck. Useless. And helpless in getting out of that place.

During that time, I’d recognized the pain of the situation. But I hadn’t really been able to see the beauty of God during it. Thrashing around in confusion does that to you. At best, you can catch a glimpse. But by the time it registers, you’ve lost sight of that glorious image again.

However, because of events during the months following my first ever panic attack over a decade ago, God has helped me keep his beauty in sight for longer periods. Thrashing away in confusion still happens, but at least those flashes of God’s beauty have become moments of worship amidst the pain.

Yet momentary flashes of worship intermingled with struggling doubts doesn’t seem like the thing we really want. What we desire is to be brought entirely out of all of pain and suffering. We want to rise from the ashes without ever having to be covered in ash again.

But in all likelihood, suffering of one kind or another will seek to invade our lives once more.

At times like that we rage and complain and fall to doubt that God is powerful or loving. Yet, the truth is that he’s there with us through it all, leading us to the place he has for us. He’s making us who we’re meant to be as creatures designed by him.

Understanding that isn’t the easiest thing to do. Pain, depression, and distress shade our eyes to the beauty of God, but that doesn’t mean he’s abandoned us to it. It means that God has a purpose for us to be here. Even in the worst possible situations. We will undoubtedly question what that reason is during the worst of it, but I believe he still has an answer.

That’s what keeps me writing these blogs and preaching the sermons. God allowed anxiety about being useless to lead me to a decade of writing and preaching in a way that I’d never imagined. And while I don’t know what the future holds for me—or this website—I know that God has a plan. Yet, I hold out hope that I’ll remain faithful to whatever the next season holds.

I also believe the same is true for you and your pain.

Oddly enough, given the timing of it all, this past weekend I heard two sermons that spoke about the book of Ecclesiastes. The unrelated preachers both spoke about how there is a season for everything. A specifically appointed time for each and every aspect of life.

However, unlike our preferences of what these seasons mean, Solomon doesn’t just stick with the time to be born, to plant, to heal, to build up, to laugh, to dance, and to perform other positive things. No, he also speaks of seasons for the less-than-desirable aspects of life. There’s a time to die, to pluck up what is planted, to kill, to break down, to weep, to mourn, and to do so much more that we wish wasn’t required of us.

While each “season” may last for months, years, or even decades, the truth behind them remains the same. These seasons are prepared for us by God.

And Ecclesiastes 3:11 points to one more truth about them. God has made everything beautiful in its time. Those seasons of our darkest days still have beauty. They’re not beautiful because we have to go through them, but rather because God uses the pain and depression and darkness to bring about his great work in us.

His beauty shining through. The pain of this tormented life transformed into ecstatic beauty.

When we witness him, in his full glory, we can do nothing other than worship our Creator. And praise him for even the worst seasons of life. Because without them, we’d never have reached the place that we are now.

Here today, a decade after the first blog for this website was written, I stand amazed at what God is able to do. Awed by his beauty.

Doubts, pain, and darkness remain all around. But his beauty cuts through it all with indescribable magnificence.

So, as we celebrate the ten years of Brushstrokes of a Theonerd, let’s be reminded not only of the anxiety that caused it, but also the beauty witnessed through it. Let’s put the difficulties of life in perspective. And let’s worship the one who set our seasons. Even if they last longer than a decade.