Lent

All of us have times when we think our own personal situation is so blighted with an imperfection or a mistake we might have made, that we can never repair it.  This is the point of a wonderful story by a famous Polish-Jewish teacher called the Dubna Maggid, or the preacher from the town of Dubna.  Here is the story:

A king had a large beautiful jewel, a ruby that was especially precious to him because it was a gift from his deceased queen mother.  Through some careless accident, the jewel was ruined by a deep scratch and the king was in despair.  He called many experts to repair it. Some tried polishing. Some tried chemical solutions. Nothing worked.

A proclamation went out that if anyone could remove that scratch, the king would be indebted to him for a lifetime. Many tried and failed.  One day a craftsman of humble demeanor came to the king saying that he would like to try to repair the ruby, and the king, who had nearly given up hope, turned it over to him.  Some weeks later, the craftsman returned. No, the scratch had not been removed but the king was delighted because the craftsman, through his artistry, had turned the jewel into something far more precious than before.  At the end of the scratch, he had engraved a beautiful rose. The scratch had become the stem of the rose through that craftsman’s skill.  A curse turned into a blessing beyond price.

Each of us is given a precious jewel by God, more precious than any earthly jewel.  There can be a scratch in any one of our lives, an imperfection that we sometimes think can never be repaired.  But through the artistry in our own souls, the image of God within us, we can turn those imperfections into works of art that make our lives priceless blessings, not only for ourselves but for many others.  I think this is what God meant when he blessed Abraham with the words, "Be thou a blessing."  We can be sure that we will be a blessing with God’s help.