Day 17 ~ Gifts Ugly to Beautiful

Onward to more Joy Dare...

Day 17 is to look for three gifts that were ugly but are beautiful.  Confused?  Take a look-see.

Gift One ~

This gargantuous, horrendous, painful-looking part of Edster's right leg is his knee...taken in 2008.


This all started in 2002, an ACL tear that my 6'6" not-yet-husband sustained while spiking a volleyball.  This ugly, awful injury that required 14 surgeries in six years...was a gift, despite the multitude of losses and suffering that continues.

A gift?

Because without this gift...there would have never been this.

We were six hours' driving time away...how would we have ever randomly connected?  It was through the gift of an ugly knee.

Gift Two ~

As the summer evolves into winter...when looked at individually, the changes, which are really death and decay, are in fact, ugly...one by one...

But, oh, what a beautiful gift from a different perspective!

Gift Three ~

It was rainy, gloomy, ugly...all day...

The lower barometric pressure brought on the "sleepies" this afternoon...

And although I was not looking outside while working inside a window-less office...it just felt dark. 

And I could have easily sunk into a "woe is me" as we go into the gloomiest seasons in a town that averages 202 cloudy days a year...

But look at what the ugly brought!!!!!!  This brillance on the way home from work with the backdrop of black, stormy clouds emphasizing it's glory.  I took this as soon as I got out of my car after pulling in the driveway.

I guess the take home message is...

God is always up to something...

no matter how it may look...

and it is for our good...

and it is good...

for He is good!

Count it all  joy! (James 1:2)