I hesitate to write this for fear that people won’t want to come to our house, but the other day when I opened the door to the water heater closet, I found myself face to face with a snake. This was not just your ordinary green garden snake, but a brown and gold striped creature nearly five feet long, who raised his (or her) head and gazed at me mildly — even, dare I say, sweetly.
In spite of his gentle demeanor, none of us felt totally at ease with a five-foot snake in the house, and we didn’t know how to go about convincing him that he would be happier outside. I looked him up on the internet and found that he was most likely a yellow rat snake, very useful to have around since they eat rodents, but we still preferred that he take his meals outside. So I called Florida Pest Control, only to be told, “We don’t do snakes.” At last a friend came over and took the snake outdoors, chuckling at our dilemma.
It was only when the snake was picked up that we could see his intricate beauty. As I mentioned, he was brown and gold striped on the top and sides, which was all that could be seen under normal circumstances. (I could tell when he slithered away in the dead leaves that those stripes were excellent camouflage.) On the underside, however, our snake was a lovely cream color with bright star-like splotches.*
So I asked myself: Why would these beautiful designs be found where generally they wouldn’t be seen? Is it that God revels in beauty, even beauty that is “useless” from a human point of view? I do believe that. I imagined God creating such a creature, putting star-like designs on its underside where they would rarely be seen and exclaiming, “How beautiful!”All that flows from God’s hands is beautiful. Like the snake’s belly, however, not all of our own beauty is visible under normal circumstances. What is more, I can’t help thinking that what God finds loveliest in us is not always what other people think is of value. Even what we ourselves take pride in may not be what God finds the most beautiful in us. On the other hand, God, who sees the undersides of our hearts better than we ever can, may look at something we think of as insignificant or even disgraceful, and exclaim: “How beautiful!”
And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us:
and establish thou the work of our hands upon us;
yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.
(Psalm 90:17 KJV)
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* In all the web pages I checked describing yellow rat snakes, the descriptions of the belly varied from simply pale white or yellowish to “mottled with gray” or “yellow highlights,” which leads me to assume that there is no single characteristic pattern.