Last night I was peeling willow sticks on my back deck. These are sticks I hope to make into walking sticks in the future. A good friend cut them for me last weekend and brought them to me yesterday, and I was extremely pleased to get them.

Some of the sticks are quite plain; just blond wood with a lot of area where decoration can be added. Others have diamond patterns or colored areas that make beautiful designs and shapes in the wood. Those colored areas result from trauma the wood has gone through in the past.

Perhaps an insect dined on a bit of the young plant, or a little injury occurred when something hard scraped the young tree, or a hungry moose stripped the bark; those injuries each leave a spot that scars and tries to heal. As my friend Kevin said, “It’s almost like opening a Christmas present when you peel the bark from a stick and see what you find beneath.”

The interesting thing is, the plain sticks are the easiest to peel, but the best patterns and colors can be found on the sticks that are hardest to uncover. The final outcomes show that those hardest to clean up are the most beautiful finished products; and all because of past scars and injuries.

God is able and very willing to take the most scarred among us and make something beautiful. Sometimes we can’t see past the scars, or feel past the hurts that we’ve accumulated over time. Yet God is able to remove the layers that hide the true beauty He knows He can bring out. He makes us useful and attractive and helpful if we turn ourselves over to His craftsmanship.

In Luke chapter 7, Jesus told a story of two people in debt; one owed a lot, the other just a little. Both debts were forgiven, and His question to the man to whom He told the story was, “So which of them (the debtors) will love him (the lender) more?” The obvious right answer is the one forgiven more.

We often see the greatest beauty after God has worked in those people most obviously needing forgiveness, those whose scars result in the clearest display of God’s handiwork. He is still in the business of creating beauty and usefulness from the least likely ingredients.

Wadda ya think?

                             Lon

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