When my son first showed us pictures of Marabou storks in Kenya,
everyone but me exclaimed, "Oh, how ugly!" Or "I wonder if it woke up on
the wrong side of the bed!"
For some reason I was fascinated by
them. I found them to be quite attractive in their own way! My wife, a
naturally witty person, couldn't stop herself from saying: "Now I'm
really going to doubt him when he tells me I'm beautiful!"
These
storks are really out of the ordinary. Like all storks, they have long,
slender legs, and they can reach a height of 150 cm (60 inches). Their
beaks also are long and narrow. Not bad for a pet bird. If they could be
domesticated, that is. But then, who in their right mind would want a
pet bird that tall? They can also have an astronomous (Is that even a
word?) wingspan of 3.2 m (10.5 feet). That's wider than I am tall!
What turns most people off is not this bird's body, but its neck and
its head. These are completely bare. No feathers in sight! Only reddish,
very wrinkled skin. It makes them look like they are half vulture, half
stork. Quite interesting, for my part!
In all reality, these
birds are scavengers. Feathered necks and heads would be detrimental for
their health when they clean the meat off of the carcasses of dead
animals. Imagine the billions of bacteria that would cling for dear life
to the necks of these creatures! To say nothing of the virus-infected
blood from their prey!
But think about it: What would we do
without scavengers? Diseases would be even more widely spread, and we
would end up having extra work looking for all of the dead carcasses to
be buried!
God had it all well planned. Nature takes care of
itself, just like God designed it to. This makes every creature of His
beautiful by design.
We all have a purpose in life. Even those
who think of themselves as worthless! It's our choice whether or not we
fulfill it.
"For everything, absolutely everything, above and
below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels -
everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him." (Col 1:16
The Message)
"His purpose titanic, his verdicts oceanic. Yet in
his largeness nothing gets lost; Not a man, not a mouse, slips through
the cracks." (Ps 36:6 The Message)
You are beautiful in God's
eyes, no matter what others think!
Rob Chaffart
Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder. Nairobi, Here I Come, Part 16
Today's Bible Verse:
"For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and
invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels - everything got started
in him and finds its purpose in him." (Col 1:16 The Message)
Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder. Nairobi, Here I Come, Part 16
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