Love, a Magic Sculptor

Life itself is meant to do its part in fashioning our faces into the beauty of Christ. Love is a magic sculptor.

There is an interesting story of one who became a writer of world-wide influence, who in her youth was said to be the homeliest girl in the town where she lived. There was not an attractive line in her face. The girl herself recognized the fact that she had no beauty, nothing in her features to win others to her, and with charming good sense and in an admirable spirit she resolved to overcome the physical disadvantage by making her life and her personality so beautiful that people would love her and be attracted to her in spite of her homeliness. So she began to cultivate the graces of kindliness, gentleness, friendliness. She yielded her heart to the full sway of love. She became a minister of help, of cheer, of comfort, of joy, to all within her reach. Wherever there was sickness, care, trouble, need, or sorrow, there she found her way, carrying the blessing of her kindly presence and the ministry of her gentle hands. She became known everywhere as a messenger of love. People forgot her homeliness, in the congenial warmth of her spirit. She was spoken of now, not as the homely girl, but as an angel of love in the community. Her face never grew beautiful and attractive in its physical features, but there was a light in it in later years which adorned its homeliness. Love is a wondrous beautifier.

The experiences of life, if we meet them in the right way, also help in bringing out the beauty of Christ on our faces. Indeed, the problem of living is so to relate ourselves to our circumstances and conditions and to the multitudinous events that befall us, that we shall always be growing in Christlikeness. Paul states this truth with great clearness in one of his epistles. “We know,” he says, “all things work together for good to them that love God.”* (Romans 8:28) It is intended that we shall get some good from every experience, from the things that to us seem evil, quite as truly as from those that we regard as blessings. The temptations of our lives are meant by the foul Adversary to harm us, to leave blot and marring upon our souls; but when we resist them they become helpers of our spiritual progress and leave us stronger and wiser. Sorrows, which cut so deeply into our hearts, which seem to leave only wounds and scars, become purifiers.

We need to remember, however, that it is only in the lives of those who love God, that all things work together for good. If we would make sure of this happy outcome from all life’s experiences we must keep ourselves in the love of God. That is, we must always believe in His love for us even in the most trying experiences, and must keep our love for Him in our hearts. If we lose our trust, if we indeed grow disobedient and rebel against God—then we not only miss the good that we might have received from “all things,” but most assuredly we take hurt instead.

The problem for us is to accept all that comes to us in quiet confidence, to endure the things that are hard and painful in sweetness and patience, creeping closer to the heart of Christ when the darkness deepens, never doubting, never complaining, believing in His divine love that will never let us be harmed. If we thus meet all life, it will work only good in us and for us, and every day a new line of the beauty of the face of Christ will be brought out in our faces.