111: redeeming God

I love clouds. I love the emotions and drama they paint in the sky.

The last few years, though, I've wondered if it's okay to love them so much since aren't they a product of the Fall? Were there clouds before there was rain, and was there even rain before the Great Deluge?

Today, driving home, I saw a peacock wisp of a cloud, and it struck me. Beauty from ashes. This is proof that God brings beauty out of ashes.

I serve the Great Redeemer. Clouds might be the result of a world-wide opening up of the skies to punish sin. But even so, God has taken that and created something beautiful.

A friend of mine will soon be a step-mom. She would rather the original family have stayed intact for the sake of those she loves. Is a step-family second best?

God is able to do what seems impossible to me. Yes, He can create something beautiful from nothing. But He can also pick up the broken pieces of the original, and instead of gluing the shattered pieces back into a shabby copy of the original, He transforms and redeems and makes something newly beautiful.

That confounds me. How can a do-over be beautiful too? I feel hesitant to suggest that a re-creation can be equally beautiful to the original design. But isn't everything God makes beautiful?

That's what each of us are. A shattered people redeemed as new creations.

And so I can love clouds anew. They are proof that God is the great Redeemer.