Beauty in Brokenness

Recently, I have been on a traveling kick. As of this winter, I have had it stuck in my mind that I need to see the whole world. I have made plans in my head to go to the Carribean, Europe and a few other places I have always wanted to see. I want to see all the beautiful parts of the world. I want to experience the wonder of these places first hand. I want to do it in style too. I want to stay in nice hotels. I want to eat amazing food. I’d like to pretend that I live in luxury and that I could do whatever I want, as if money was not a consideration. I think we all would like this. Am I right?

We all desire beauty. We want to be beautiful. We want to see beauty. We want to feel beauty. We want to experience beauty and to lead a beautiful life. What I love about Jesus is that he brings beauty to brokenness. Lately, I have been so blessed and in awe of how God brings his beauty to even the darkest of situations. He uses the storms and trials of life to bring us right to the place that He has called us to be. No matter how badly we have screwed things up, no matter how hopeless things may seem, there is no limit to what He can do when we finally make the choice to surrender our hearts to Him and to go all in. The most beautiful thing of all is a love so strong that no ugliness we encounter in life can ever separate us from it. As Paul writes in Romans, “And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow-not even the powers of Hell can separate us from God’s love.” (Romans 8:38)

And God uses us to carry his beauty into the lives of broken individuals. I live in the city of New Haven. I work with families on welfare to help them to gain their independence and to find employment. What I love about this job is that I am uniquely positioned to bring hope to people who may very well be facing one the most challenging seasons of their life. In my freetime, I work with inner city youth. I love being invested in the lives of our youth, even in their messiness, because I know God is working His beauty into their storylines. This is the gospel. In our brokenness, Jeses came to us. He rescued us by dying a painful death on the cross, in order that we may experience the outworking of His beauty in our lives and upon our hearts. He uses us to carry His message of love into the lives of broken individuals.

It says in scripture, “For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making His appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” (2 Cor. 5:19-20). Today, where is the brokennness in your life that God wants to introduce to His beauty? Where are the broken people around you that need to experience God’s beauty through you? You can be rest assured that he is working out a beautiful ending to even the most heartbreaking of stories.

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