You're beautiful!

The past few months have been hard on me spiritually, and I've only 'come out of it' in the past couple of weeks.  One evidence for this has been the lack of ideas for this blog, or any ideas that I've had being too wordy and less simplistic, the result of the Holy Spirit not flowing through me but rather the flesh trying to drum up ideas.  I've gone through many struggles where I've questioned God's love for me.  But a rather profound thought that struck me during one of the darkest parts of this struggle became one of the major keys to getting me out of it as I pondered this thought further.

One day while I was looking in the mirror during this time, the thought struck me that my face is exactly how God designed it to be.  In other words, the same God that the Bible says created the limitless vastness of this universe (Psalm 19:1-6) and the billions of human beings that have existed before me also made the effort to arrange the features on my face to make me totally unique from anybody that has ever existed in the past and who will ever exist in the future.

As I've pondered this since, I've been blown away at what this represents.  For instance, the idea that everyone has a "twin" or "look-alike" is not true.  Even if somebody found someone who they claimed to be their look-alike, upon close examination there would be enough differences to sort the two apart.  This is true with even the closest-resembling twins.

At times I've wondered just how God envisioned what I would look like at all the various stages of my life.  Was He staring at my face at the dawn of time as he envisioned it, as close as the mirror that I now look into?  Did His very fingers trace its shape and arrange the features?  I marvel at how He coded my DNA to not only create the appearance but also cause the countless changes in it from conception to death.  Perhaps what is most profound as I write this is to realize that He did all this for me and for each and every one of us.  Even at the risk of you and I rejecting Him by rejecting Jesus, He made the effort to create every one of us to be unique in appearance and personality for His good pleasure.

You might be upset at God by what you see when you look in a mirror.  You might be upset that God didn't make you "handsome" or "beautiful" enough, or not at all.  You might even hate God because you perceive that He played a cruel joke on you, and that your looks have caused you to be the brunt of teasing and even violence that has destroyed any sense of self-respect and dignity.

But have you ever thought that God's standards are not that of man?  Have you ever thought that you are beautiful in the eyes of the One who the Bible says created you, that you are not a mistake?  Some might argue that the corruption of sin also corrupted the beauty of mankind.  Perhaps this is true, but perhaps not.  Consider what God declared to Samuel:

"Man does not see what the Lord sees, for man sees what is visible, but the Lord sees the heart."  (I Samuel 16:7)

Suppose your looks have been the brunt of jokes.  Could it be that the damage caused has been due more to how you've reacted to them?  There are several people I've encountered who don't appear gifted in the looks department, but their personalities are remarkable.  These people have ignored or overcome what others have said about them.  In the case of Christians, they've also learned how to see themselves as God sees them, and to realize that the heart is of infinitely more importance than one's outward appearance, not just to God but to open-minded people as well - those who, like God, look to the heart.

To realize the immense love of God for me in this way and at this time has had incredible meaning, and I'm grateful that He has spoken to me in this manner!  Hopefully this realization will impact you as well.