the pinions and plumage of love

i came across a beautiful little verse today.

'the wings of the ostrich wave proudly, but are they the pinions and plumage of love?' -job 39:13  the rest of the section talks about how the ostrich leaves her eggs on the ground, and doesn't warm or protect them, and she treats the eggs as if they were not hers.

i love it.

it just struck me really hard that there is no reason to be proud of pinions and plumage if there is no love.

love is the valuable thing, not proud wings.  the ostrich runs with horses, is strong and full-feathered ... 'but are they the pinions and plumage of love?'

and don't we love people who love us, and see them as beautiful?  not because of their svelte appearance but because of their smile lines and warm hugs?  i realize that my mother is magazine-cover beautiful, but her exquisite beauty is not my favourite thing about her.  i love her for the compassionate tears that spring to her eyes when her heart is touched, for the happy lines that appear so readily around her eyes when she smiles at me, for the hands that have worked so hard to care for me my whole entire life.  oh yes - my mother is most gorgeously arrayed in the pinions and plumage of love. 

but i love this verse for more than that.

i love it because of Jesus. 

Jesus did not come to us with proud wings. 

the creator of the universe could have come with raw and radiant power, in a blaze of beauty and impenetrable majesty.  but he didn't.  he came in the humble, broken, oh-so-ordinary plumage of love.

every scar and wound he bears, a record of his love.