Dazzling Beauty

C. S. Lewis wrote about praying for God to help him forgive a person who had deeply wounded him as a boy. For years it was an up and down struggle. Then one day he was surprised to realize that he had truly forgiven. Sometimes truth sneaks up on us.

Other times truth dazzles us suddenly as though a bright light has been turned on in our souls. I was dazzled by truth the other day. It was a truth I have known all my life but this time I saw it in Technicolor.

And I wasn’t in church or even in my prayer corner with my Bible open. Of all places, I was in a crowded department store, wending my way slowly down the aisle, trying to read the labels on aisles with people’s heads bobbing around.

Abruptly, I stopped as I eyed an unusual appearing young man standing in the aisle. He was tall, very slender and his head was a bit smallish for his body. It was his homeliness that caught me. I watched him as he was talking cheerfully and intelligently with another clerk. His dark eyes brightened as he spoke. Perhaps it was partly his youthful innocent appearance which drew me in. But suddenly I comprehended the beauty in this young man’s person. And I was surprised by the change in my view of him. Then the thought occurred to me, “Perhaps you are seeing him as God does.”

Almost in an instant, all the people around me were transformed--slender, heavy, T-shirted, tattooed, or coated. For those few moments in that nondescript store I saw everyone as beautiful. It was dazzling! And I continued on my way exhilarated.