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This past week we came home from the west coast only to arrive on the east coast right behind a tremendous ice storm.  After a two hour ride from the airport to our driveway, we were met in the night with broken branches and tumbled trees, unsurpassable.  Thankfully we were able to stay on a neighbors’ sofa, warm and cozy for the night. 

At day light, the devastating picture came into focus.  Most of the county was without power.  The ice had done its damage. Some areas looked as though a bomb had gone off. Trees that were old enough to hold their own were cut in two, as the ice weighed their branches and caused them to break.  However, even in this terrible mess there was absolute beauty. 

When the sun hit the branches of ice, they glistened like fine diamonds. It was an exquisite site to behold. Something that you can imagine in fairytale books – a scene that cannot be made by man, but only by God.

As Christ followers, that is exactly what happens to us.  Our lives are a complete mess without Jesus.  Then one day, God’s Son shines so brightly that we can see His beauty and majesty.  We see the love that God has for us and realize that without Him we are totally broken.  The only one who can help us is God Himself. Then we reach out to our Savior and we receive the beauty and love that He has for us. We pledge to love Him forever – to be a Christ follower.  And a new life begins, with Jesus. It is radiant because of God’s love that He puts inside each one of us.

There is a song by Need to Breathe called, “Multiplied.”  “Your love is like radiant diamonds.  Bursting inside us, we cannot contain.  Your love will surely come find us.  Like blazing wildfires singing Your name.” 

The word explains that God dwells within Christ followers: “Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?”(1 Corinthians 3:16) We have a treasure which has been entrusted to us and just as much as we embrace it, we must also guard it too.

“Protect, through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you.”(2 Timothy 1:14)

As much as we protect, it we also cannot help but share it.

“Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them?” (Romans 10:13,14)

Yvette Perrin is a columnist for The Charlotte Gazette. She can be reached at theword2yvette@gmail.com.