Broken but Beautiful

Once again, my friend Deann shared a lesson about a butterfly, with the children at church. She showed us a picture of a beautiful butterfly with a piece of its wing missing. Even though the butterfly wasn’t perfect and complete with two solid wings, it was still able to do its job by flying from flower to flower eating and pollenating. It was still beautiful and useful, just a little piece was broken off.

Have you ever dropped your favorite coffee cup and chipped it or broken the handle off? Did you throw it away or turn it into a pen holder? Or maybe you broke a treasured piece of china or stained your favorite t-shirt. Did you immediately toss them? Some people just can’t get rid of a favorite item because it still has value or beauty to them. Read on to see how broken but beautiful is a good thing.

The Bible tells us that God created everything including us and it was good. Are we all the perfect size? Do we all have perfect heads of hair? Do we all speak eloquently with the same accent? Do we all eat, sleep, and live in the exact same way? Of course not! Does that mean that some of us are broken? Of course not! However, we do live in a fallen world that is no longer perfect because sin entered in. We are all broken because of that sin and we are all beautiful in God’s eyes because He made us. We may be broken by many things here in our sinful world. Our hearing may be off, maybe we can’t see perfectly, maybe our giddy-up has a hitch in it. Some of us may be missing a limb from an unfortunate accident. I recently watched a video of a man who was born with no arms yet he overcame and learned to play the French horn with his feet. It was truly amazing. As I read through the Bible, the broken people are the ones Jesus was drawn to: the woman at the well, the crippled beggar sitting at the gate, the woman with the issue of blood who was cast out of town, the blind man who sat near the pool. There are many, many more.

The picture is clear every time. We are not all perfect and that is okay. God comes to us regardless of how we perceive ourselves, he sees us as his children and wants the best for us. He wants us to accept our broken parts an all, seek his face, repent of our sins, and follow Him. When we focus on God then it no longer becomes about us/me. Our focus is changed. We, ourselves are not the center of our own attention anymore.

We are all broken in some way whether physically, mentally, spiritually, or emotionally, but we are all still beautiful in God’s eyes. We just have to stay away from the ugly sin. Broken but beautiful just like the butterfly. That’s pleasing thought.

Here is a picture of my own broken butterfly. Half of his right wing was missing but he's still flying.