When I was 17 my real father and my grandmother flew 3000 miles to attend my high school graduation. After the ceremonies we took a few days and traveled to a popular California tourist spot, Yosemite. The California beauty was almost too much for my grandmother to take in. She particularly could not get over the pink flowers that grew wild along the highway. All the way there she commented on their beauty. These flowers were nothing new to me and my 17 year old patience for hearing about the pretty flowers along the side of the road quickly diminished after the first 30 minutes. Irritation set in fast and my eyes rolled at her every attempt to point out some new landscape scene that I was all too familiar with.
At 17 I had eyes to see only what I deemed worthy of beauty.
At 17 my perception of beauty was limited to that other girl who I thought was prettier than me.
At 17 I was immature and had a lot of life yet to see, and in that life, relationships yet to mature and grow in appreciation.
I have many fond memories of my grandmother in my younger years but it took those adult years to develop the eyes to see a different kind of beauty around me.
But first life had to get really ugly.
Dating didn't leave roses at my doorstep, instead I got pricked by thorns and was left with a scarred heart. The fragrance of the excitement of marriage evaporated almost as quickly as my beautiful bouquet of flowers began to wilt. The disillusionment of how I expected my life to play out left me walking along the fence line really wondering if life was greener on the other side. The exhaustion of parenthood along with the wild ride of emotions of being a mom led my heart into a severe drought, thirsty for a quenching of something, anything that satisfied.
With the inability to see beauty in my surroundings, life was beginning to slowly drain out of me as if my own heart had a bloody leak and was beginning to beat slower and slower.
He comes not just as a healer on a page of words, but as MY Healer.
He comes and sees ME and gives me eyes to see past me.
He comes down in love and becomes MY love. For "GOD IS LOVE." (1 John 4:8)
And when I pass by you and saw you struggling in your own blood, I said to you in your blood,
"Live!"
Yes, I said to you in your blood,
"Live!"
I made you thrive like a plant in the field; and you grew, matured, and became very beautiful. Your breasts were formed, your hair grew, but you were naked and bare.
When I passed by you again and looked upon you, indeed your time was the time of love; so I spread My wing over you and covered your nakedness. Yes, I swore an oath to you and entered into a covenant with you, and you became Mine," says the Lord God.
Ezekiel 16:6-8 (emphasis mine)
A rebirth into LOVE. A transformation of healing happens by His wounds alone for He is the wounded Healer. He know our pain, the abuse, the lashings, the long roads we have walked, for He has already gone before us.
In our vulnerability. . . He sees.
In our nakedness . . . He sees.
And in those things He says there is beauty.
LOVE has come down and LOVE has covered in a covenant of faithfulness that says you are Mine forever and ever.
In the covering an uncovering happens and beauty buds in a life alive.
Now I see pink, and purple, and red flowers and they are beautiful. I hold a newborn and I see beauty, the beauty and joy of the fierceness of the love of a mother's heart. I see love restored in marriages and the beauty of the redemption of my own marriage, of my own self to my LOVE.
He says when you thrive in my beauty I will make you beautiful.
So it is. . . in the radiance of His presence I am beautiful.
AND SO ARE YOU!
May the Blessings of the beauty within and without be revealed to you today!
Love, Rachael