Wild blue yonder

Have you ever noticed how the sky becomes more blue after the clouds have passed and the rain has ended? The rain cleanses the air of all its dirt and dust and smoke, so that the rich blue can be seen in greater beauty and glory. There are times, in a long stretch of sunny weather, when the blue of the sky becomes less attractive to me as it fades, hiding behind the gray and white and brown layers of whatever happens to find its way into the air. But after a storm, it is always incredibly beautiful, stunning and brilliant in the purity and depth of color. I wonder if it is like that in our lives. We are innately beautiful and pure (since we have been reborn in Christ and have His life rather than our own old sin-bound life), but as we go through life in this world, still surrounded by sin and struggling with it even in our own selves, that beauty is easily hidden behind all the dirt and pollution we pick up. But when we hide ourselves in Christ, even as the sky hides itself behind the storm clouds, we are cleansed by Him of those tarnishes, renewed time and again so that our beauty may testify of His grace before all the world.