Welcome.

My present job has me overseeing groups of volunteers who kindly, night after night, show up to offer their willing hearts and hands in cleaning a very large, religious edifice used for worship, one of the temples of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I love the people that come to clean. They are wonderfully willing and do whatever is asked of them – no complaints, moans, or groans. Just head to toe willingness that is so appreciated.

Last night, my little group consisted of four lovely souls, two couples. One couple was young, recently married, the husband still in school. The other had been married for several years. They had four children. Both were delightful.

Especially impressive was the wife who made up the older couple. Though she obviously cared for her physical body with attention and care, she wasn’t especially pretty. Her nose was somewhat large and her facial features less striking than perhaps she would have liked herself.

BUT SHE WAS SO BEAUTIFUL.

She brought all of us together with her outward focused personality. She asked questions of all of us, wanted to know our life circumstances, solicited our stories, made us feel important, ran the clock down without us even knowing, and was wholly responsible for the wonderful time we shared together as we worked. Her husband was likewise outward focused, but it was clear that his wife was the reason for their Christ-like approach to mingling with and loving others.

Because of her questions, I confessed that I was a published author and had recently written and published my first book. She wanted to know the name, as she intended to order it. I was dumbfounded.

She came a stranger and left a friend.

She wasn’t especially pretty, but man SHE WAS SO BEAUTIFUL.

As I watched her walk out those temple doors, I remembered these words of Isaiah’s about our Messiah: “…he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him…” (Isaiah 53:2)

According to these words, there was nothing particularly impressive about the appearance of Jesus that would have set him apart from the men of his day EXCEPT for who He was, His character, His very being.

Except that He…

“[bore] our griefs and carried our sorrows…

was “stricken, smitten…and afflicted…”

was “wounded for our transgressions…bruised for our iniquities…”

“was oppressed and…afflicted…brought as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth…”

was “taken from prison and from judgment…”

was “stricken for the transgression of…people…”

“made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death…”

“…had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth…” (see Isaiah 53: 4-9)

HE, TOO, WAS SO BEAUTIFUL.

That lady last night wasn’t especially pretty, BUT SHE WAS SO BEAUTIFUL.

Who she was, what she did, how she weaved us in a tight-knit closeness in a matter of one hour and thirty minutes revealed her true beauty.

SHE WAS SO BEAUTIFUL. She revered the Lord and honored the work of His hands, her spirit brothers and sisters.

Her cosmetics were not of this world. For her “lips, she wore truth. For her voice, prayer. For her eyes, pity. For her hands, charity. For her figure, uprightness. For her heart, love.” (See page 10 of Heroic Mormon Women by Ivan J. Barrett)

“Favor is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.” (Proverbs 31:30)

I praise this woman!

SHE WAS SO BEAUTIFUL!

Unto all the world: I love beauty as it really is!