Beautiful from the Inside Out

"... and a diamond"

Exodus 28:18

I met a friend for breakfast a few weeks ago. 

It wasn't great. 

The breakfast, I mean.  It was a disappointment.  It was a quiche, but it tasted like they had prepared several of them first thing in the morning, and it had been sitting around. 

But that's okay.  Lesson learned.  I just won't order that again at that restaurant.

My visit with my friend was lovely.  We met several years ago in Bible study.  She now attends a different class than I do, but the friendship has remained.  Best kind, right?

She's a funny kind of person, my friend.  She has a quirk, sort of.  A quirk I've seen in quite a few of my other friends. 

Which makes me wonder if maybe it's me who's quirky....  I've got to give that some thought. 

Anyhow, the thing about my friend is that she often wears a sweatsuit when getting together with friends.  It's not because she just left, or is headed to, the gym.  On the contrary, this isn't even the kind of sweatsuit you'd wear to the gym.  It was one of those rather nice sweatsuits.  Maybe they call them "lounge wear"?  Or "resort wear" or something?  I'm hopelessly out of touch when it comes to fashion...

I feel like I should wear something nice when I go out of the house.  I mean, not fancy or dressy, necessarily, but I just have my hang-around-the-house clothes, and my be-seen-in-public clothes.  And ne'er the twain shall meet.  After all, I don't want to wear out my nice clothes or risk getting them dirty by wearing them around the house. 

But here's the thing:  though my friend had on her incredibly casual sweatsuit, she was also wearing her unbelievably beautiful diamond wedding ring.  Of course she was.  She's married, after all; she wears it all the time.  But it seemed so incongruous with her clothes. 

Incongruous, but in a good way.  I somehow just loved the way her ring seemed even more lovely, being set off by clothes that were mostly unremarkable (although I've certainly managed to remark quite a bit here).

But more than that, I loved the reminder that how we look on the outside changes ~ over the years and day to day.  We grow old, with the wrinkles and gray hair (or no hair) that goes along with that.  Or we dress to paint the house, or clean the garage, but still wear that gorgeous diamond ring that we got on our wedding day.  Our identity does not change.  Our love does not change, just because we can't do justice to our jewelry.

And worthy of a diamond ring, is how our Savior sees us.  All the time.  Whether we're grimy and muddy, or dressed to the nines.  We are His.  And we are beautiful.

~ "as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,

    so shall your God rejoice over you" ~

Isaiah 62:5

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