Confession

So Jesus was being creative on Saturday. I felt pretty okay in my own skin for once, and while feeling thus, someone noticed and said I looked it. I'm sure it was the grace of God and what I was wearing, but I did feel sure of myself. Wrongly, perhaps, because I think I was trading on my "legitimacy" as an "art teacher" (ha!) and a volunteer; when I'm talking with important people my survival mode kicks in and I react by gently highlighting my own validity. Which seems a reasonable reason for Jesus not letting me curl up with and enjoy that compliment like He usually does. It was still niggling me later that night as I got to the place I'd left off in Ezekiel.

Turns out it was my favorite chapter; you know, the one that casts Israel as the baby girl God finds in the field, wallowing in her own afterbirth, bloody, unwashed, and unloved? Chapter 16. Yeah, so I get to verse 14 and this is what I find:
"Then your fame went forth among the nations on account of your beauty, for it was perfect, because of My splendor which I bestowed on you..."
I had begun to suspect as much but this stated it concretely: just like food, clothing, shelter, salvation and the fruit of the Spirit come from Him, so does our beauty. And I'm talking specifically about physical beauty.
This created twin explosions in my brain.
Number 1: just like the following verse says ("But you trusted in your beauty..."), if we begin to believe our beauty is our own, to trust in it, to rely on it, to trade on it, begin also to expect an overthrow. Just like Israel.
Number 2: if my beauty comes from God alone..... I don't have to worry about it! I don't have to be concerned about where it's going to come from or if it actually exists any more than I have to worry about where my next meal is coming from or if clothes for tomorrow actually exist. I can relax!

And that, my friends, is a beautiful thing.