“Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you . . .” (Isaiah 43:4, ESV)
This happened many years ago, but I still remember the day I met Precious. Let me tell you her story.
A nurse in the hospital unit where I did volunteer work asked, “Would you like to hold a baby?” This was one of my favorite jobs, rocking and cuddling an infant, so I immediately said yes.
“Have you held her before?” she inquired. This was not too unusual a question because the children were often in this unit for weeks or even months. But I had not held this baby before.
“I should tell you then, just to prepare you,” the nurse explained, “that she does have multiple facial and cranial deformities.” Whatever this meant, I had said yes, so I moved to the baby’s crib. The nurse’s words were not enough to prepare me for the infant lying there. No feature was what it should have been. Her deformities were extreme and her tiny face grotesque.
Handing me the blanketed infant she said, “She needs a little love, so hold her for a while.” I accepted the little bundle and began to rock and talk to Precious. It was difficult, for she was not the adorable little form we all expect to see and love to hold when we think “baby.”
“This is one good reason why a person should never use drugs,” a passing nurse commented. Precious was the abandoned child of a drug addict. Life had dealt some severe blows in the few days of her little life. The sins were not hers, but her future would be forever altered because of them.
“Who named her?” another nurse asked. No one seemed to know who had given the disfigured infant such a loving name.
As I held Precious, I began to think of ugliness and love. Mine, not hers. Once I too was deformed, marred by sin. I too was unlovable, but Someone took me in His arms and began to rock me and say sweet words of love to me. I was given a beautiful name, far above what I deserved. Even in my ugliness and deformity, I became Precious and was cherished.
All of us were once like Precious. Sin had left deep, ugly scars that we thought could never be erased. But the hands that touched us were the healing hands of love. Because of God’s tender mercies, we have been given a future and a hope. Our countenance has been transformed by His salvation. We are redeemed and have become a precious treasure to God. “For the redemption of their soul is precious,” (Psalm 49:8).
We are deeply loved. We are precious.
“Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will.” (Ephesians 1:4-5, ESV)
(Note: I later learned that Precious found love in the arms of a wonderful foster mother who saw beyond her outward appearance to the inward beauty and innocence of a child.)
Devotion by Mary Loudermilk
