Wonderfully Flawed

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

your works are wonderful,

I know that full well.

- Psalm 139: 14

For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

- Ephesians 2:10

Today in our worship service the worship leader invited a beautiful boy of Middle Eastern descent with an endearingly sweet presence to come out onto the stage in his motorized wheel chair. Slowly but deliberately he shared with us that he is in Grade one and loves to sing songs to God in the bus on the way to school. With his captivating smile he also added that he is learning more about God in the Children's Ministries at our church.

He had memorized two verses from the Bible (cited above) and while the words had a difficult time getting out at first, with his head turning back and forth, God's Word began spilling over with an open heart and spirit of tenderness. 

It dawned on me, as I looked across the rows of flawless people impeccably dressed and immaculately done up, that there were many among us - as is the case of so many airbrushed models of the world - who could see nothing but their blemishes carefully concealed from everybody else. There would be many who embodied the ideal of "perfection" but whose bodies were inhabited by the fear of exposure, the fear that those invisible disabilities would be left undefended for all to see.

And here was this little boy confined to a wheelchair, about as visibly disabled as one could be, absolutely convinced that he is "wonderfully made", a meticulous work of art, "God's workmanship", and no one could convince this boy, beloved of God, otherwise. He was lovable because he knew he was dearly loved. There was a light within him that refused to go out, because he refused to take the givenness of life for granted. As one of my clients so often reminds us at work, "It's always good to be yourself!"

"From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise" (Matthew 21:16); such as this little, disabled (?) boy today, marginalized by the world as disfigured, but reconfiguring our relationship in belovedness, created for a purpose of Divine magnitude - flaws and all - persuading us that we really have nothing to hide, as long as we are hidden in Christ. Heaven is full of surprises.