“You are a root. And only God knows what the flower will be. Don’t get lost castigating yourself for being a root. Without the root, the flower can never be. The flower is an expression of what now appears so lowly and unimportant, a waste. … Even though [you are] this ugly, ordinary-looking root, [you were] designed and intended to express a unique and extraordinary flower.”
“The problem of pain is a root issue. … Somehow the pain, the losses, the hurt, the bad — God is able to transform these into something they could have never been, icons and monuments of grace and love. It is the deep mystery of how wounds and scars can become precious, or a ravaging and terrifying cross the essential symbol of relentless affection.”
And the to the question, “Am I worth it… the answer is always yes.”
— Cross Roads, Wm. Paul Young.
This is why Romans 12:1-2 is such an important verse. Mind renewal is more than just going to a couple of sessions with a counselor to dredge up past hurts. It is the transforming work of the Holy Spirit taking these cracked and broken vessels and reshaping them into beautiful sculptures. We are intended for so much more than we see when we look at ourselves. I look in the mirror and I see me — in my human, imperfect, finite state. I see all the stuff inside of me that no one else sees. I saw a commercial recently about women who were twittering about how fat they looked, or how displeased they were with certain parts of their body. They took all the tweets and attached them to clothing in a boutique store and the women were reading these horrible statements as they shopped and would look at an article of clothing and think… “Wow. I have said this about myself.” They realized it is time to stop using their own words to speak negatively about themselves and start speaking words of affirmation. This “root” that we see is not what we are meant to be. Look at the image of this Dahlia. It is an ugly, bulbous ball when you get it. You plant it and say “Gee, I wonder what this will end up looking like.” Water, and sunlight cause it to grow into this resplendently delicate, beauty with purple tipped petals, and you marvel in astonishment at the transformation of a once ugly root. We are more than what we think in the here and now… what awaits us in the next life, I can’t begin to imagine how we will look, but I do know this, our very garments will be a living testimony of our story.