God’s True Love

Bessie Pease Gutmann’s illustrations graced the covers of many of America’s early magazines such as McCall’s and Woman’s Home Companion. Bessie painted lovely images of babies and young children, capturing their innocence and purity in soft shades of blue and pink. Her own dear children, Alice, Lucille, and John, were her little muses.

One of her paintings from the 1930’s portrays a little rosy-cheeked girl with waves of golden hair. She wears a little pink dress and matching pink shoes as she holds a rag doll missing part of her little cloth leg lovingly to her cheek.  A beautiful china doll wearing a pretty purple dress and matching apron sits at her feet, unnoticed.  The painting’s title: “Love is Blind.”

Sometimes we believe the lie that we must be like a fine porcelain doll, shiny and perfect, before God can truly love us. We make such an effort to “shine” things up outwardly so we will be the chosen one. We forget that God’s Arms are never more open and His love is never greater towards us than right now:

The Lord your God is in your midst, A Warrior who saves. He will rejoice over you with joy; He will be quiet in His love [making no mention of your past sins], He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy.   Zephaniah 3:17

God’s love is not blind, for He loves us with eyes wide open, aware of our sinful nature. Yet He never reminds us of our past once we ask His forgiveness. When we feel beat up and used like the little rag doll missing a leg from the battering of life, may we be reminded that our God is both a Warrior Who saves us out of our sin and our Creator Who loves and rejoices over us—just as we are!