Beautifully Distressed

Beautifully Distressed is one of my favorite Pinterest boards.  I thoroughly enjoy browsing the wealth of pictures that have captured the beauty of antique furniture.  Many of the pieces are so old, chipped, dented and damaged, that there has been no other option but to paint them and distress them.  Thus, "Beautifully Distressed."  Today, I realized I should just pin myself onto this board.  I'm distressed in so many ways:

1.  I have three kids.  I'm harried, hurried and sometimes haggard.  My brow is forming a wrinkle from all the "distress-related furrowing."

2. I have, so to speak, "pinned" myself too many times, to quite a few commitments.  All of which I love, of course, but together they can add a little too much patina to my facade.

3.  I'm a worrier.  Every rattling cough or itchy eye, each tale of harsh words spoken at school, all of the fears of impending middle school…they weigh on my shoulders and deepen that furrow.

4.  And here's my biggest reason I'm "distressed:" I'm a hopeless, never-changing, selfish, sometimes broken: sinner.  I'm not just the gently used side table at the flea market.  I'm that old barn door that is so broken, so weathered, so rickety that the only use for it is to salvage its wood.  It is beyond repair by human hands.  But here's where the beauty begins: I happen to know someone who's pretty good at restoration.  His name is Jesus, and when He died on the cross He restored the most important part of me: My Soul.  While I'm on this earth I will keep aging, weathering and distressing.  But inside, deep in my soul, I am a beautifully restored creation…just waiting to be united with my creator and restorer!  I am loved in spite of my imperfections.  I am cherished even when I am broken.

2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.