Slow Transformation

Soon very soon my morning will dawn. I have seen light in the distance of my future and the sky is less dark, less lonely, less frightful. I pray that He soon opens the flood gates of His glory in my life. That God is "glory" or "excellence" beyond our understanding none can deny. But does my heart look up to Him every day in humble, earnest worship and know the truth and speak the truth "Thou art my glory"? Not as often as it should. My safety and that of my children lies in the fact that He possesses me. My deepest, holiest joy comes only when I humbly say in the hour of my secret worship, "Thou art mine."

These past few weeks He has been transforming me. He is restoring my sight, my understanding of who I am and who I belong to. For so long I saw myself thru Ron's eyes. He found me beautiful, attractive and often told me so, in the secret hour of love, in the quiet nights when he tenderly held me in love and passion, I would see it in his eyes, I could hear in his quiet voice, I could feel it in the way he gently touched me. Now that he's gone, I no longer see what he saw. Before me stands a woman far older than 42, whose hands are rough and wrinkled, hands that have lived far more years than I. Hands that have held life as well as death, that are familiar with the warm smooth skin of a just born baby and the cold steel of scrap metal salvaged from a bomb site. My hands feel ancient, wiser, cold and tired, not quite comfortable with the body they are attached to, contemptuous of the younger me. I am beginning to understand them. My hands hold the vastness of my past, the history of my construct, their lines reveal all the lives that I have lived and the lives that yet await. They continue to be lifted high in adoration, in glad surrender, in praise as well as in pain. How much more can they hold? I am slowly finding them beautiful, not because they are but because of all they hold. And as I begin to see beauty in the most worn parts of me, I see beauty in the rest of me. My face is trusting, perhaps sadness and grief has soften the lines on my face making me safe for others to open up and share. Perhaps I will never see what Ron saw, for the mirror that he was for me is broken, what I'm beginning to see is what He sees, and He too whispers sweetly, in the secret hour of intimate prayer, in the way He gently touches my heart that I am beautiful.