Black or Gray

There are times when we unexpectedly run into a Word from the Scripture that puts us in the re-read mode.   When Isaiah 46:3-4 showed up in my line of vision, I did not know whether to say "Amen!' or "Yes!" or "Thank You, God!"  Either one of the three would have been appropriate.  "Listen to me,...who have been bourne by Me from your birth, carried from the womb: even to your old age I am He, even when you turn gray I will carry you.  I have made you, and I will bear; I will carry and will save you."  Maybe "Wow!" is a better word.     

It is a Word largely lost on so many in our day.  We forget the reality that what is in the womb is being wonderfully made and formed (Psalm 149:14).  Before our mother is able to feel any movement within her, the imprint of the hand of our Creator is molding us as surely as a potter takes a lump of formless clay and makes the invisible, visible.  But, the part of that verse from Isaiah which really shimmered in front of me on the page was the line about the gray hair.  I have had black hair and lots of it.  I have had gray hair and now the black and gray is a memory as I see that white haired guy in the mirror each day.  And as surely as God cared for me and carried me in the womb, so does He care for me and carry me in these days so far from the beginning.     

While I have never really doubted that the care of God is not based on being youthful in appearance, it is good to read a word that brings a reminder that the old are as valuable in the eyes of God as the very young.  It is not a message we hear often in the world around us which is geared to worth being relative to productivity.  Black or gray, or none at all, God cares for us all!