Some things are delicate. Some things are ugly. Some things are beautiful. Some things are ...
There have been times when I have labelled myself with many different adjectives, some good and some bad, and yet when the dust has settled, I have realised amidst it all, God stays the same. When I have felt at my most delicate, when I have felt at my most ugly, God has been there and reminded me that I am made in his image. I first started pondering this a couple of days ago when the damselfly caught our eye. The words that came through my mind were delicate, vulnerable, beautiful, vivid, intricate and yet each word brought me back to the God who created this most striking of insects and created me.
When we saw the cricket today the opposite of that beauty seemed to hit me, not the most elegant of creatures is it? Now entomologists may correct me, but we first thought that they were in the middle of a mating ritual and so left them alone. It was then that it struck me, what I thought ugly, was beautiful in its own right.
"And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds.
And God saw that it was good."
The beauty of His creation that I have seen over the last few days includes me and it includes you. What adjective would you use for yourself at the moment? Whatever that adjective is God has a whole load of different adjectives that he had already chosen before he started crafting you.
Sometime I struggle to hold on to those adjectives, I see the bad and the ugly and skip over the good. In those times I realise I need to rake myself back to the words of Psalm 139:
You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.
You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
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.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand —
when I awake, I am still with you
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