Wonderfully Made

I love Psalm 139. It is a great passage about how well God knows us, even better than we know ourselves.  I love the whole chapter, but lately God has really been speaking to be about verse 14-15: “I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well.  My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in the secret place.  When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, Your eyes saw my unformed body.”  These verses are often quoted or printed when referring to a fetus or even a newborn infant.  How easy it is to see and be in awe of God’s handiwork when we view an ultrasound picture…

…or look into the face of a newborn baby…

However, it becomes a little more difficult to see and appreciate God’s handiwork when we look into the mirror.  Why is it that as we get older, we tend to forget that we are God’s masterpieces, the crowning glory of all His creation (more glorious than the most beautiful sunset, beach, mountain, meadow, etc.)?  Why is it that we either forget or choose to ignore the fact that He “knit [us] together” in our mother’s womb.  He took time to create us just how He wanted us to be.  At what point to we being to look in the mirror and see the eyes that are too close together and the smile that is crooked and the hair that is just not right instead of seeing a masterpiece created by THE master artist.

I am bad about this.  I look at myself in the mirror or at pictures of myself, and I see all the things I would change.  How this approach to viewing myself must hurt my Creator!  I am making an attempt to do better – to look at myself and see myself the way God sees me – beautiful and perfect, created by Him for His glory, not my own.  I am doing this for Him, to bring glory to Him.  I am doing it for others, to take the attention off my “imperfections” so that I can see other people’s needs.  I am doing it for myself, to treat myself the way God would want me to.  And, finally, I’m doing it for my children.  I do not want them to learn from me how to critique themselves.  I want them to know that they are “FEARFULLY AND WONDERFULLY MADE!”

So, grab a mirror and take a look at God’s greatest creation!