Very random

Church this morning got me thinking. It was a slightly strange mix of carols (for which I was responsible - after all, I was playing the piano, so I got to choose the music!) and the great commandment: to love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul and all your strength, and your neighbour as yourself.
A strange juxtaposition took place. 'If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb' gave me an image of a cute, freshly washed and blow-dried (hence extremely white and fluffy) lamb being presented to Jesus. But what if the only lamb available were lame, one-eyed and rather bedraggled? Would you still give a lamb? Or would you keep away, knowing what a pathetic specimen it was? Would you go empty-handed? Or frantically try to find something else to take instead?*
But we weren't talking about giving lambs. We were talking about love. About heart, soul, mind and strength. Somehow I had an equivalent of the whiter-than-white fluffy lamb in my mind. A pure heart, an unfettered soul, a mind fixed on God and strength which endures. Except I don't have that. I have a heart which has been scarred, a soul which is tattered, a mind which remembers the times it seems God has let me down, and strength which has almost disappeared. So do I give my lame, one-eyed, bedraggled lamb as a present? Or do I stay away, ashamed of what I have to give? At the minute I seem to be hunting around so I can take the equivalent of an unwanted knitted jumper that was the wrong size for me so never worn, but it looks nice so I can pretend there was some thought behind it...


* this may be a female instinct to not turn up empty-handed (it certainly seems to be in our house)