Sheep and Butterflies

Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes.  Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight.  1 Peter 3:3-4 (NIV)

I love yarn.  It's a sickness really.  The Yarn Studio in Casey is my Happy Place. Just walking in the door makes me feel better.  It's weird, I know.  How can one be so drawn to yarn? I have no idea, but I am.  I love to pick them up and feel them.  I love to imagine how they would look as a hat or mittens or a sock (that I would never finish).  And that reminds me, sock yarn is sooooo eye-catching. I see the sock yarn table and it's all I can do to walk away empty-handed.

What brought me to this post - I was opening up an e-mail from some Knitting blog or shop or something I've signed up for telling me I could have a free trial subscription to a magazine and the cover this month was a big burly sheep.  Ugh, why would you put a big burly sheep on the cover of a magazine that isn't about the farm?   I started cracking up because then it hit me.  Duh, I love that sheep.  THAT ugly sheep is how I get to enjoy beautiful yarn!

Lane has been studying metamorphosis and I was helping him with his homework the other night.   Imagine a caterpillar.  They're not necessarily ugly, but I don't normally look at a caterpillar and think, wow, that is a beautiful caterpillar.  When the caterpillar is full grown and stops eating, it becomes a pupa. There is absolutely nothing cute or pretty about the pupa. This pupa stage in the process can last a few weeks, a month or even longer. It may look like nothing happens during this stage, but major things are going on inside.  And then suddenly, a beautiful butterfly appears.

It made me think of how God uses all of us for something.  The good, the bad and even the ugly. The Christian band Gungor has a song called, "Beautiful Things" and part of the chorus is 'You make beautiful things, you make beautiful things out of us.'

So often we put too much stock in how someone or something appears on the outside.  We like to see pretty, we love to touch soft, nice things...but sometimes even something ugly has the potential to transform into something absolutely beautiful and eye-catching.  A transformation or metamorphosis has to occur within us to become that something beautiful.  A heart for Jesus - is something beautiful no matter what the outward appearance.

"Beauty is skin deep, but ugliness goes clear to the bone."  Ouch.  How true that can be.  There is a lot of ugliness in this world.  It is our job as Christians to let our light shine that beauty He created within us onto the ugliness of this world.

There are times I can be as ugly as a big ole burly sheep, inside and out...but I know that he is still using me for good.  I just need a little tune-up on the inside every now and then.

Or maybe I should've been a sheep, created to produce endless skeins of soft, gorgeous yarn.  Sing with me now, I just want to be a Sheep, Baa, Baa...