Beautiful Letdown

Song of Solomon 1:15
How beautiful you are, my darling! Oh, how beautiful! Your eyes are doves.

Yesterday my girlfriends and I went to a place called "Painting with a Twist." The twist is that you all learn to paint one picture, but you're own way. That particular night, we learned to paint a ballerina.

In my mind's eye, I knew what she would look like. The instructor was using primary colors but I wanted soft blues and teals. The instructors painting had her hair up but I thought her hair should be down and billowing wildly behind her. I wanted her to look whimsical.

When we were done we all compared our paintings---shocker! They all looked different. Unique. Everyone had put their own twist on their painting. I looked at my ballerina and all I saw was beauty. Granted, I'm no Renoir or anything close to that, but I had created her....and it gave me extreme joy to see that, flaws and all.

I mean, sure her leg was a bit awkward, and she was a bit disproportionate but she was beautiful nonetheless. Possibly more beautiful because she was not perfect. It is through her imperfections, through her uniqueness that you could see who created it. There was a bit of me in her, and a bit of my friends in their own paintings. That's why every painting in the room looked so different. The artist always shows through the art.

I wondered, could this be how God thinks of us? Not perfect by the worlds standards perhaps, but perfectly imperfect to Him? A beautiful letdown of sorts. Could it be that our flaws and foibles might just make us all the more beautiful?

I think so.

Because where our flaws are visible is where He makes Himself known. Where our weaknesses are, His strength shines through. Where the canvas of our perfectly placed facades are rent and torn, they are the holes through which His grace is visible.

The Creator always shines through the created.

And that's beautiful.