He knew her before He formed her, and she was beautiful [1].
A mother caresses her swollen belly and anticipates the coming day that her flower will enter into this world. Brushstrokes on birchwood, silver needle and sky-blue thread, the nursery is almost ready. Rosebud lips and golden tendrils of hair that shine as bright as the sun. That’s what she imagines when she closes her eyes, swaying to the chimes of the baby mobile over the crib. Other than that, she just knows she’s beautiful. He has told her so.
Fed from the hand of her Heavenly Father, she flies higher than the birds of the sky [2].
Joyous birth, childhood, adolescence. Their flower is nourished with the sweetest water, the richest soil, the warmest sun from the very beginning. They watch with radiant anticipation as she sprouts, first a sapling, a bud, and finally a luminous blossom dancing in the breeze and sunlight. Sweet dewdrops fall from gleaming petals onto sage green leaves – she is uprooted, ready to be re-potted elsewhere for the world to admire.
A lily is not meant to be cast among the brambles [3].
She is meant to be cherished, embraced, wooed. And yet there is a certain beauty to a lovely, delicate flower hidden among the thorns. The softness of her petals against the briers, threatened at any moment by the jagged edge of a dangerous spear. She rests her face against a rickety and prickly bed of barbs, splayed precariously against it with all her weight, hoping and praying for fewer bruises, fewer scars, less blood, less damage – this time.
When she meets Him again, she weeps for joy [4].
Her dewdrops fall between His toes, her petals rest upon His feet. When He looks at her, the others in the room – their conversation, their stares, mutters, glances, the shuffling of their feet – it all drifts away, as pollen to the mercy of a late summer breeze. The flower has held on by her roots in a never-ceasing wind that would blow her into the abyss, swaying treacherously as dangers threatened from all sides. But now, beheld by her Savior, her roots finally hold fast. Fearfully and wonderfully wrought, she pushes on in beauty [5]. She is home.
Endnotes
- Jeremiah 1:5
- Matthew 6:26
- Song of Songs 2:2
- Luke 7:38
- Psalm 139:14