Crown of Creation

It is a rather valid argument that women are among the most frequently marginalized group both today and in history. A creation that God Himself deemed His crowning achievement constantly told they are less than. Not good enough, not strong enough, not smart enough. The crown of creation, the jewel of it all constantly beaten, broken, and pushed down. We forget who we were created to be. Eve herself carried this guilt and shame with her from the garden. After all isn’t she the crack in the perfect plan of creation, the weakest link? Like Eve we believe we were not good enough. We believe we failed and we should be placed on the back row, in the background where we are no good to anyone not even ourselves. It’s better to do nothing than to do more harm right? 

It sounds hopeless right. That's how it’s supposed to sound to us. Hopeless. However, there is another character at play here. He was there at the dawn of creation. He watched the oceans take their shape. He watched the birds take to the wind and sing their first song and he was there when Eve was tempted. He has been around for years and centuries, for lifetimes and generations. He has had time to perfect his art. What is his art exactly? What is his hope and his purpose? It is a one-minded desire. He must only make us believe it all. To set us down and convince us that is where we should be, sitting in the back, hidden. For lifetimes he has worked to find the frayed parts of our lives, the places where the tapestry of our lives was pulled, torn and cut apart from our eternal purpose, from our Creator, the Lover of our soul. He has pulled on the threads and watched how we dance. How can we hope to fight against such an enemy? How can we hope to get free. Why not just sit down? Why not just give in? Perhaps that isn't all.

Even though our enemy has taken the long years of his life to perfect his craft. Even though my twenty-eight years of life in my own flesh and blood can't begin to compare to his knowledge of my human condition. I have a Champion who knows even more. Not only did my Champion knit me together, not only did He create the tapestry of my life, He created the tapestry of my enemy’s life. He understands his edges and the places where he has been torn apart. He created those edges and those boundaries. Sometimes I allow the voice of my enemy to get to loud for my ears. Sometimes I let his face get so close I can't see the expanse beyond. But that doesn't matter, because my Champion understands my heart. He not only sees the tapestry of my life He understands it intimately. He know the color of each thin thread of my life. He chose each shade and the depth of the saturation of each hue. He gets me. That's the easiest way to say it. He gets me so deeply that it feels He knows my choice and my decisions before I even consider them, and maybe He does. He anticipates me like a well-choreographed dance. He moves and pulls me so closely to my own movement that in some ways I can't even see the movements. I can't understand that I am dancing and I certainly don't understand the purpose of each twirl and spin. But even that is okay. Even when I feel my enemy has pushed me down into the muck of life. Even when I don’t feel I am anything close to the crown of creation but more akin to something stuck to the bottom of a shoe. My champion looks at me and He laughs. He reminds me that what I feel is not Truth that my emotions do not really reflect who I am and all the while He dances with me.

He swings me to the rhythm of a song that He hums sweetly in my ear. All I need to do is close my eyes and listen. Some days that song is loud like the pulsing music of a nightclub. But sometimes it's like a whisper, like the barely audible buzzing of a honeybee. I have to listen hard and even when I hear it I doubt it's truth, it's relevance, and its reality. Some days it seems like I am simply talking to myself, trying to convince myself that it’s all-true. On those days I have to believe that I truly am dancing, a beautiful pattern all my own, that I wear a gown clean and glowing. The fit is perfect and the room is stilled as all of creation stands to watch my Champion dance with me. The room is silent as it witnesses my Champion love me even when I cannot love him back. They are in awe of His passion for me and the beauty of His dance.

That is what it means to be the crown if creation. Not that I'm perfect or eloquent or so unbelievably beautiful that birds stop their song and the wind hurries to brush my hair. No, that isn’t it at all. It's that my Creator sees such beauty in me that He is utterly struck. He takes me in His arms and even when I'm not sure I know how to dance, on days when it feels that I don’t love Him and I turn to walk away, He pulls me close and He hums in my ear the song of my heart, the song of my life, the song of His Love for me. That's what being the crown of creation means. That creation is in awe of the love He has for me, for you.