Beauty in the Brokenness

     Every year around this time my daughter and I work through her photos to see what she is going to enter in the Indiana State Fair.  Two second places and a third the last couple years have convinced me of the gift she has with her eye and the lens.
     The picture here is one that has just missed the cut for the 2017 State Fair, but one I love still.  (We'll share this year's entries in a couple weeks).  As I looked at this picture I felt compelled to add the text about beauty in the brokenness.
   I have become more and more convinced as the years have passed that we are all broken in some way.  The struggles of this life chips away at all of us.  The butterfly in this picture is a majestic reminder of that.  As it emerged at an earlier stage of life it was a beautiful and whole creature.  The life unfolded and pieces of the wings were chipped away by reasons we cannot even know.  They may simply have become brittle and broken or they may have broken in some collision or storm or even been taken away by an attack from another creature.   Yes this butterfly has persevered, has continued, and the wounds that we see on it do not detract from its beauty but rather they enhance it.
     As people the struggles of life chip away at us all.  Our wounds may be inflicted on us by circumstance, or by others, and sometimes even by ourselves.  We carry on on our bodies and in our souls the scars of these wounds.  Yet we press on.   We are reminded in Hebrews that there is a cloud of witnesses all around us, people who have run this race that we are running.  We are reminded that we are not alone, but that there is a place in front of us, a person in front of us, on whom we can fix our eyes.  When we do realize this truth we go toward Jesus, eyes fixed on him,  wings spread wide, and he calls us to a place where we can land safely. In our brokenness we find the beauty the he intended for us from the beginning.

FRESH PAINT

 I am excited about the way my new office has come together.  A few days ago it was a mess, stuff everywhere, the walls sanded down and the blue dust from them all over the room and the empty shelves.  Then it began to change.  A fresh coat of paint was applied.  The shelves were re-arranged.  The mementos were added and the lighting was put in to place, and suddenly the place looks very different than it did for my predecessor.  After reworking the office is not set for me to use in the ways I can and I am excited
 about that.

Still, no matter how good it looks on the outside, if the underlying supporting structure isn't solid, all the fresh paint in the world can hold up for the long term. The outer appearance of this office is only as good as the structure that lies beneath.  If the framing of behind the dry wall is rotted, the walls will not hold up.  If the foundation of the building is not firm everything in the room will eventually come crashing down. We are only as good and strong as our foundation. 

 So as I embark on this new journey in Dayton, Indiana, I am reminded of two things by my new office.  First, I am reminded that now matter how dirty and beaten something is, it can be given a fresh coat of paint and renewed.  Second, I am reminded that no matter how good something looks it is no stronger than its foundation.  If the fresh paint is point on a strong foundation it will draw people to it.  As Christians may our foundation be strong, and may what people see when they look at as be something they would see and say, that's good.