Lanier Ivester is a homemaker and writer in the beautiful state of Georgia, where she maintains a small farm with her husband, Philip, and an ever-expanding menagerie of cats, dogs, sheep, goats, chickens, ducks, and peacocks. She studied English Literature at the University of Oxford, and her special areas of interest include the intersection of Christianity and art, the sacramental nature of everyday life, and the truth-bearing witness of the imagination. For over a decade she has kept a web journal at lanierivester.com, and her work has also been featured on The Rabbit Room, Art House America, The Gospel Coalition, and The Cultivating Project, among others. She has lectured across the country on topics ranging from the meaning of home to the integration of faith and reason, and in both her writing and her speaking she seeks to honor the holy longings of a homesick world.

Every Beauty 

Think of the world the Lord has made

As if it were a lover’s bouquet 

Held out just to make the heart of God

Plain in every beauty that you see 

Every star in the sky 

Every kind look in someone’s eyes 

He is calling out to you

Through the good things he’s speaking through 

Maybe a there’s a story that you’ve heard 

That opened up an aching in your heart  

Where something like a light behind a door 

Has made it through the cracks to where you are 

There’s a lump in your throat 

And the tears come to your surprise

Like there’s someplace that you belong 

With someone who loved you all along 

BRIDGE 

Every heart born on earth, Is so thirsty to be loved

But every heart gets so beat up, Till it’s lost out in the hurt 

And the heartbeat of our song, As we try to get it back 

Is same tune that the Lord, Is singing back to us 

Now, there is a highway through this world 

That opens like an aisle for a bride 

And you can hear the song the groom has made 

Threading through the patchwork of our days 

There’s table like a ring 

And a King down upon one knee 

Hear the blood and body speak: 

Make the whole world our wedding feast

© Matthew Clark 2022