Fearfully and wonderfully

The mirror gets one of the first words of most mornings, and it is rarely a kind one. Psalm 139 speaks earlier and truer: you were made — knit, the psalm says elsewhere, deliberately, in the dark, by hands that do marvellous work and did not slip when they made you.

“Fearfully made” does not mean made afraid; it means made with awe — the way one handles something precious. And the psalmist does something bold with this truth: he praises. Not his own reflection — the Maker. Worth, settled this way, stops being a daily negotiation with the mirror and becomes a settled fact underneath it.

The last phrase deserves keeping: that my soul knoweth right well. Not “knows on good days.” Right well — down deep, past argument. Some truths must be told to the soul until it knows them that way. This is one. Say it today, especially if you do not feel it yet.