True beauty

I was reading Psalm 103 today in The Message version:

He crowns you with love and mercy—a paradise crown.
    He wraps you in goodness—beauty eternal.
    He renews your youth—you’re always young in his presence.

I was struck by the words in these verses about what God does for us - crowns us, wraps us, renews our youth. It reminds me of how what the beauty and fashion industry would seek to sell us - adornments, clothes, everlasting youth from beauty treatments. Yet these are things that God has given to us.

It reminded me of Isaiah 61:

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
    because the Lord has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted,
    to proclaim freedom for the captives
    and release from darkness for the prisoners,^[a]
2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour
    and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
³     and provide for those who grieve in Zion –
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
    instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
    instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
    instead of a spirit of despair.

Those three things are there - the crown for our head, the beauty treatment and the clothes to wear.

I have a wardrobe full of clothes that you might think breed, such is the way the wardrobe gets increasingly fuller. I have so many clothes that it is quite possible that there are not enough days for me to wear them all. Every now and then I find some other item that I've forgotten - I just can't keep track all the time. Yet, I don't doubt that I'll be buying another dress or pair of trousers soon. Now, clothes do wear out, they don't last forever, but I buy them far exceding this rate!

So why do I do this? why do I feel the need to stockpile clothes? Partly it is because I might see a bargain - we do all love a bargain! And there is good sense in buying when clothes are cheaper, so buying a number of clothes at sale time isn't bad. But again, how many times do I need to do that?

I like new things, so a new dress feels and looks much nicer. But that new dress is quickly among the old clothes a day later.

I wonder whether it has something to do with the feeling that I'm not clothed, I'm not complete somehow. I buy new clothes to cover up for inadequacies elsewhere. I feel a compulsion to look good, I want to stay feeling young and beautiful.

The picture at the top of the post is a magpie feather I found while out walking. It doesn't look as good in a photo - in real life there are blue and teal colours along the left edge. As I look at this, I wonder how does the feather know how to be white and black? How does it know how to merge the blue into teal and into black? Because God made it that way. God makes beautiful things on this earth, like this feather.

And here I must remember that God is much better at making me beautiful than I am. He gives me love and mercy, a crown for my head, a garment of praise, oil for my head. His beauty for my soul makes me much more beautiful than I can ever be physically.

And so, returning to Psalm 103:

Praise the Lord, my soul;
    all my inmost being, praise his holy name.