Fading Beauty

Walking through the parks one day on my way to see my eldest daughter, for some unknown reason (not known to myself) I didn't have my camera attached to my arm, it was in my back pack. I stopped to watch a peacock butterfly which landed on my thigh, of course the minute I tried to reach for the camera it was gone.

The thing I noticed was that it's colours were fading and its wings were torn and I felt for this poor butterfly but you know no matter how much our outward beauty may fade, no matter how much parts of us refuse to function as they should the Lord Jesus looks beyond the outside beauty deep into the heart, where if we know Christ there is a priceless, ageless beauty that the world can't take away and doesn't understand.

I was reminded of the wonderful words of a chorus we used to sing at chapel when I was a child.

Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me,

All His wondrous compassion and purity,

Oh, thou Spirit divine all my nature refine,

Till the beauty of Jesus be seen in me.

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

Romans 12:1-2