Beauty from Ashes

I have lost count of the number of times I’ve been recognized by people I’ve never met! When I’m out shopping, customers where I work, and most recently, the receptionist at my eye doctor! I had never been there before last week, although my mom and several of my sisters had. I walked in and told the receptionist who I was. But when I did, she told me “I knew who you were the second I saw you!”

Why? Because I look and sound so much like my mother. I’ve heard that so many times that I’ve lost count of them as well! But this time, it got me thinking.

If I can be recognized as my mother’s daughter as soon as I am seen–if people who hear and see me hear and see her, instantly, without my having to say anything–how much more should I be instantly recognized as a daughter of the King? Do people see Christ in me as easily as they see my mother in me?

That’s how it should be. It should be so obvious that I am a follower of Jesus that I don’t even have to say it. Christ in me should shine through so evidently as to be unmistakable. Not flashily obvious, from trying too hard to show something that isn’t really there, but so naturally and irremoveably a part of me that He cannot be separated from me. To be perfectly honest, that’s not where I am right now. But by God’s grace, it’s what He will be continuting to make me.

This is a test post. My deepest apologies to anyone who may have seen that I updated, and is now disappointed to see that there is nothing really new.

In 1 Corinthians 2, Paul seems to have had the same idea that I did (although, to be fair, he probably had it first!). “And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” (1 Corinthians 2:1,2). In reading this passage, I’m struck again by that idea. We don’t always have to be eloquent. We don’t have to know it all. We don’t need all the answers. We need to know this one thing. Our Lord and Savior….Jesus. The One who opened the eyes of this one who was once blind, so that now I see. He is more than enough.

(just so you know, I do fully realize the irony in this title!