Here's another gospel game situation for you:
My hub-hub and I love walking around the mall at Christmastime to look at the displays and people watch and see all the screaming kids forced to sit on Santa's lap. My husband really wanted a watch for Christmas this year, and before we found one on Fossil's website for 70% off the regular price (woot woot clearance!) we hunted around the jewelry section at department stores... which I LOVE doing. Everything is so sparkly... And shiny... And colorful... It's like a carnival for my eyes...
Leaving the mall to go to our dinner destination, I glanced down at the cheap, plastic, cost-three-dollars-at-most jeweled ring on my finger and found that the giant gem in the middle had fallen out. What a strange feeling I encountered! After spending so much time admiring all this 'real' jewelry, gawking at the extreme price tags, swooning over the rich colors, and being captivated by the brilliant sparkle-- I felt so silly feeling sad about my missing fake gem... But I was! I was so disheartened! I loved that little ring and as inexpensive as it was, it brought me so much joy. It was also colorful, and sparkly, and although you'd never find it behind the sealed glass case of a department store, it was mine. It belonged to me. And it was my responsibility to care for it which I had apparently failed.
I showed the ring to my husband, which now resembled a skeleton more than fine jewelry, and he offered to take time to retrace our footsteps. "I don't know," I told him, "It could be anywhere and I don't want to miss our reservations. We're never going to find it. It's not worth it."
"It's absolutely worth it if it makes you this sad," was his reply, so off we went, heads down, scanning the floor, in desperate search for the most invaluable diamond at the mall. We dodged the hurried shoppers, flew passed Santa and his screaming visitors, slowly making our way right back the department store jewelry section. Splitting up, we walked around each counter-- and there, laying face up on the floor in front of the most colorful jewelry (the ones I had admired most) was my little glass gem, still intact but now covered in dust and debris.
It was found.
The Lord used that moment to speak so loudly to me about beauty and redemption. You don't have to lay down next to the 'more brilliant' diamonds, He whispered. Don't waste your time wishing you were one of them. One day, every precious stone will fall from the prongs and lay among the dust. Every pearl and piece of gold will fall apart and cease. All my creation is slowly eroding-- I designed it that way. Because I will come again to make everything new. To make everything redeemed. To make everything shine.
And until that day comes, you can run as far as you'd like. You can slip yourself from my prongs and hide in corners on the floor, you can call yourself 'invaluable' and 'unworthy' and every other lie the world wants you to believe. It won't be true. Because I'll come looking for you, desperately searching for my little glass gem, each and every time. And I will find you. You are mine. You belong to me and I will protect you. You'll never get far enough to be outside of my care. To me you are the most colorful, you have the most sparkle, you are as priceless as can be.
You are my treasure. And the price tag underneath you is not labeled with numbers, but labeled with a man's name, written above his cross. The price paid for you is the greatest. And never again will I let you be lost.
Readers, we are beautiful, loved, pursued, redeemed. Let your heart yearn after this more than anything during the holidays. :)
Agape,
CC
“What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’” Luke 15:4-6
Beautiful Carrie!
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