The New and Ugly and the Fresh and Incomplete

I sat baffled the other day. Did you know that I have been in Fiji for over 6 months now?
The adage follows, I suppose, that time flies. Following this revelation of time passed, I pursued my place and thought-life right now.

About a month ago a little girl of 19 was brought to Homes of Hope. Her eyes were downcast. Weary as she held her baby girl. Jasmine, a shattered woman, was led onto the campus with a police escort. She had just come from spending a night at a police station with her baby because the man she was living with had tried to set her on fire with kerosene.

Slowly, conversations over afternoon tea uncovered Jasmine’s past, much of which is heart wrenching, involving gang rape, being sold by her family for $700, and the requisite abuse from those who should cherish and protect.

Yet my bafflement is washed in the sustaining life of God who makes all things new. New and fresh and incomplete…Incomplete. What beauty is the incomplete, because our Jesus is not done with His work.

The incomplete is Jasmine who holds her head up now. Jasmine has decided to give Jesus-walking a try, and after her first week of, as she calls it, “her change” Jasmine has said in a bewildered voice, “I never knew that ugly could be beautiful again.” I asked Jasmine to explain what she was saying. She did, and I asked if I could write down what she had just said to me, for it is a beautiful thing.

Here is what Jasmine said:
I thought, this Jesus is a man. And men are mostly ruled by hurt and pain. They put this on us. Then they told me that this Jesus wants good things, that He is love, and saving, and life. So, how could this new Jesus, new God want an ugly girl? I asked Jesus this, and He made me cry and said, “You are fresh like the rain and beautiful to me.”

And I am baffled by this New and Relentless God, who makes the Fresh and the Beautiful.