Ugly Duckling?

This is what I see as I drive to work.  Trumpeter swans. Fields bursting with new life. Trees and mountains. How blessed am I?

Hans Christian Anderson told a tale about a swan. Do you remember how it went? It was called "The Ugly Duckling". It's one of my favorite childhood stories. The mama duck hatches her brood and finds one very awkward and ugly duckling in the bunch. The poor odd duckling is banished from the barnyard. He is heartbroken because he is so different from every other creature he has ever seen.
Do you ever feel like an ugly duckling? I'm quite sure we all do from time to time. But I want to remind you about the end of the story today. Here is how Hans Christian Anderson described it...

Just in front of him he saw three beautiful white swans advancing toward him from a thicket; with rustling feathers they swam lightly over the water. The duckling recognized the majestic birds, and he was overcome by a strange melancholy.
"I will fly to them, the royal birds, and they will hack me to pieces, because I, who am so ugly, venture to approach them! But it won't matter; better be killed by them than be snapped at by the ducks, pecked by the hens, or spurned by the henwife, or suffer so much misery in the winter."
So he fluew into the water and swam towards the stately swans; they saw him and darted towards him with ruffled feathers.
"Kill me, oh, kill me!" said the poor creature, and bowing his head towards the water he awaited his death. But what did he see reflected in the transparent water? He saw below him his own image, but he was no longer a clumsy dark gray bird, ugly and ungainly, he was himself a swan! It does not matter in the least having been born in a duckyard, if only you come out of a swan's egg!...
The lilacs bent their boughs right down into the water before him, and the bright sun was warm and cheering, and he rustled his feathers and raised his slender neck aloft, saying with exultation in his heart: "I never dreamt of so much happiness when I was the Ugly Duckling!"

Oh dear friend, I wish for you today that you might see your true reflection in the Water of Life. You are accepted in the Beloved*; so very dear to the heart of the Father. And beautiful; so beautiful.
Believe it. Then spread your wings... and fly.

*Ephesians 1:6  ...he hath made us accepted in the beloved,