Radiant

"When the Israelites saw Moses and noticed how radiant the skin of his face had become, they were afraid to come near him." Exodus 34:30

In Acts 6:15, Saint Stephen's face is described as "bright like an angel". This was when he had been arrested and was being accused before the high council. When my cousin Susan saw Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Susan said she was beautiful, so young! Susan was not the only one who thought that Mother Teresa was radiant. You can find many who met her who would describe this nearly bent over wrinkled old woman as "very beautiful". Such is the transforming power of God in our life. 

Malcolm Muggeridge, the British journalist and satirist who helped introduce Mother Teresa to the western world in his book , "Something Beautiful for God", wrote that she was like a light that could never be extinguished. "She had the beauty of holiness — that special beauty, amounting to a kind of pervasive luminosity generated by a life dedicated wholly to loving God and His creation. This, I imagine, is what the haloes in medieval paintings of saints were intended to convey."  

The writer recognized that  "without the special grace that vouchsafed her, she might have been a hard, even grasping person. God turned these qualities to his own ends." Yes, Mother Teresa could have been controlling, shrewd, stubborn, tough, hard-headed and uncompromising, but she offered all she was to God and He transformed her. He wants to do the same for us. 

May we turn to You Lord every day that we can be mirrors that brightly reflect Your glory. May Your Spirit work within us, that we may become more and more like You and reflect Your glory even more. (2 Cor. 3:16-18)