A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
John 13:34 NIV
Do you know matryoshkas? These wooden dolls hidden within each other are typical souvenirs from Russia and Ukraine, so we have brought them home from our travels and they are displayed on a shelf in our living room.
My daughter asked me to help her with a sewing project. She needed a series of soft matryoshkas for the babies in the church for a special occasion. As I was sewing them I started musing about my first encounter with matryoshkas. We moved to England when I was eleven years old. We traveled on a Russian ship from my native Finland to our new home country. My parents bought a matryoshka from the ship’s souvenir shop and I spent a lot of time opening the wooden dolls and putting them back into each other again.
The dolls are all painted in the same design and look like each other, except that each one is smaller than the previous doll so that they will fit inside each other. Our matryoshkas were painted in the traditional red and yellow colors, but somebody had made a mistake when the dolls were put together. The second doll had a violet skirt and was obviously part of another series.
I was a child who wanted everything to be perfect, but the different doll always stuck out and spoiled my row of wooden dolls. It was the odd one out. The odd doll was perfect in every way, it was made of the same wood, and had the same form. Only the design and colors were different. I played with all of the dolls even though one was different. But it took me some time to accept that the odd doll was unique and maybe even more precious because of its differences.
I had lived in monocultural surroundings. I was born in a European country where at that time few people looked different from me. I was ten years old before I saw the first black person. Maybe God wanted to use this doll to prepare me for a life where I should accept the unexpected differences of people.
God does not expect us to all look and be alike. He could have created us all to look alike just like the matryoshka but he did not. God loves diversity and that is why we are all different, unique beings. He loves us even if we stick out from the others. And that is why we should learn to appreciate the diversity of God’s children with their opinions, cultures, and colors. Just as God loves us, we should love one another because we all belong to God.
Especially in these times of military escalation at the Ukrainian border and the danger of aggression I would like to ask you to pray for peace. As so many politicians have said, “It is difficult not to consider the amassment of forces at the borders of a neighboring country as a threat.” Let us pray for wisdom for the world leaders who are looking for de-escalation through negotiations.
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