Sacred Garments

“Make sacred garments for Aaron that are glorious and beautiful.”
‭‭Exodus‬ ‭28:2‬ ‭

See my Virginia creeper?

She’s dressed for a party! She sure is pretty today.

I stopped to admire her. And then, it hit me.

For hours, she was battered and blasted by blizzard winds. I experienced but a part of what that entailed, in my impromptu snowshoeing adventure during a lighter version of the storm earlier. Our adventure mostly required moving with the wind at our backs. Once we turned into the wind?

If you’ve never tried to move northward into a blizzard determined to push everything in its path southward – well, I guess you’ll have to imagine it. The snow was like sandpaper. It stung. It burned, in its absolute chill and bite.

I didn’t like that part so much. Any exposed skin in my face remained bright pink for several hours afterwards – not from the cold, but from the stinging snow and wind.

And if my Virginia creeper could talk, I bet she’d say she’s had better days.

See, her garments aren’t frost, but tiny fragments of snow blown so fiercely that they cemented themselves into what you see now.

Haute couture at its finest.

Beautiful.

Sacred garments, truly.

And it stands as a testament, a clear reminder of a solid truth – God uses adversity to build beauty.

He loves beautiful things, you know. He delivered plans back in the day to design garments for the first priests to serve Him in the days of Moses that would not only be functional, but glorious and beautiful.

Just as the designs drawn up to embellish and beautify the priests at the time, God draws up plans for us.

Truly.

You and I are in the process of becoming beautiful.

But just as cloth must be cut and shaped and then penetrated by needles and thread in order to stitch them together, we also may require some trimming, so to speak – a little bad habit snipped off there, a little poke there, to draw out the inner strength and character required.

Ah, friend.

If you are headed straight into a north wind and are feeling the burn, take heart.

Glory and beauty are just around the corner.

We gaze at the beauty of these snow- dipped bushes and are stunned at their gorgeous outfits. But we don’t think too much about how they got beautiful. We don’t dwell on the darkness, the howl of the wind, the brutal assault of stinging, blistering needles of snow.

But oh, the glory and the beauty of the finished product!

Sacred garments, indeed.

Trust the Designer with me?

Father, how delightful it is that You love beautiful things, and create them constantly! Bless us in the process of becoming beatified. Help us to remember that You will only bring us what You can use to reshape, transform, and beautify us. Amen.