A Thing of Beauty
As I dipped my brush into the paint stripper, I wondered what I would find underneath the scarred coats of black enamel on the old sewing maching cabinet. I soaked the top of the machine cabinet with the messy solution. It was like painting with unbeaten egg whites.
Soon the outer layer of enamel began to bubble as the caustic solution ate into it. I scraped away the loosened paint, scrubbed the crevices with a brush, and wiped off the residue with a damp cloth. In some areas, only the top coat was removed. In other areas, several layers were stripped away, and the beautiful grain of the bare wood was beginning to be revealed.
I continued soaking, scraping, scrubbing. I used steel wool to clean the splotches which continued to cling to the wood.
As the layers came off, I thrilled to the natural beauty I was uncovering. Under years of abuse, under a mask of paint, I found the original beauty of the natural wood.
How many people are like that old sewing machine cabinet? Their eyes reflect the pain, the abuse of their years. Their masks are smudged and ugly, and underneath their peeling layers of bewilderment yet another coat of pretense is revealed--another facade painted over heartaches of the past.
How many of these frustrated personalities conceal a dormant beauty, a beauty waiting to be revealed--waiting, but afraid. Afraid of the caustic pain as false security is soaked and scraped and scrubbed away.
I wonder--if I could believe in them, encourage them, stand with them--if I could believe, would it help them have the courage to allow God to begin melting away the layers of their disgrace? Perhaps it would be a messy process. Perhaps their bubbling, seething surface would be even more unlovely as the first layers of their pride were dissolved. Perhaps--dare I risk it?--perhaps some of the caustic solution would spatter on me and begin to melt away some of my surface as well....
Oh, but if I could believe; if I could plant myself firmly beside these battered people in love and encouragement and intercessory prayer; if I could trust the Carpenter to refinish His own creation--if I could, if I would--then perhaps we would both be revealed, refinished, reborn into a thing of beauty, a joy forever, a tribute to our God.