God looked at everything he had made and he found it very good. // Genesis 1:31
I am not a nature girl. Perhaps my family’s most iconic winter photo demonstrates this most clearly. Bundled from head to toe in a snowsuit, winter jacket, hat, hood, and mittens, I’m standing on the front porch of our house with tears of misery streaming down my face as my older siblings frolic in the yard building a snowman. Why would anyone choose to leave the comfort and warmth of their home to purposefully subject oneself to frozen wetness and bone-chilling cold?
As for the spring and summer, I don’t like being dirty so anything involving dirt or mud, or the possibility of dirt or mud, was out of the question. Then there’s my sordid relationship with poison ivy which on occasion led to heavy duty antibiotics and steroids!
I often have to remind myself that nature, created by God is, in fact, good, not because my experiences of it are good, but because God has revealed to us that it is good. It is easy to forget, sometimes, that I am part of God’s creation and therefore, I am good, my body is good; humanity is good.
Our goodness is not in our actions or experiences of our bodies always being good, but because God created us in His image and likeness. He finds us very good (see Genesis 1:31). He delights in His creation, in humanity above all. His delight is so complete that when He finished creation, He rested in His delight.
Sister, today, rest in the goodness of creation. Rest and delight in the world around you. Look past the frozen wetness and bone-chilling cold of the snow to see the beauty of the sparkling snow—each flake as unique as the human being contemplating its design. Bask in the beauty of the ocean, “teeming with an abundance of living creatures” seen and unseen.
Rest in your own beauty. Rest in the Father’s delight in you. As you look in the mirror today, remind yourself that when the Father gazes upon all that He has made He finds it “very good,” and you are included in that.
Sister Maria Fatima grew up in Rhode Island and entered the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist in 2005. She holds a MA in Theology from the Saint Paul Seminary School of Divinity. Sister is in her eleventh year of enlightening middle school minds and drawing hearts to Jesus while teaching religion and history. She currently resides at the motherhouse in Ann Arbor, MI, having previously taught in Texas, Florida, and Ohio. She is a contributing author to our Lent devotional All She Had.
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