He Makes Beautiful Things Out Of Us

She said it the way people tell you they are going to take out the trash.

A matter of fact.  Unemotional. 

Because when you are taking out the trash, it just needs taken out. And maybe sometimes the ugly truth has to come out that way too.

She said she was raped.

She said that she just couldn’t hide it, because it’s the shame that rots your heart like so much garbage and she just wanted to be free. 

And she said that she knew, she knew that God didn’t do this to her.  That He loved her.  She said that she wasn’t going to hide it because she knew, that this is the stuff God uses.

This is the stuff God uses.

He uses it to tell His story. 

To tell the story of His redeeming grace.

 

That God can redeem anything.  Everything.  All things become grace in His glorious hand.

And only grace can give you this kind of hope, the hope to come out of hiding, the hope to believe in beauty again.

And I’ve looked into the eyes of women so empty, so hollow, so buried beneath the weight of all that hiding shame, that you can’t even tell if there is a real heart beating in that chest somewhere.  A real heart bearing the weight of that, trying to forget.  So they wear the mask, and they can’t even smile strong.  They can’t even breathe in beneath that weight.  They told me that 95% of the girls in the community in Costa Rica had been molested as children.  So many more raped.  And they live only what they know, and they become mothers at 14 or 16 or 18 and they never quite know the truth about them.

That they are loved.

That they are valued, and not just valued but treasured.  And not just treasured but daughters of the Most High King. 

And He made them to be His.

And when I spoke there to those teenage mothers, and I saw the masks they wore, all I could do was to reach up and peel away mine.  To tell my story of His grace.  And even if our stories aren’t exactly the same, I know what it is to hide.  I know what shame feels like.  I know what it is to feel used, broken, worthless.  I know.

And I tell them that God wants to take all the broken pieces of them and make it into beauty.

And when we give Him control, when we offer Him our lives, all the ugly, the broken, the bleeding mess of us, he takes it.  And transforms us into His Beauty. 

And we can finally come out of hiding.  Because He bore our shame on His cross.  And He was broken for us to heal our shredded hearts. 

He comes to make all things new. “ For if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation.  Behold the old things have passed away, all things become new.” 2 Corinthians 5:17

And we sing this beautiful song.  And we remember that He makes beautiful things out of us.  Out of our pain.  Out of our dirt.  Out of us.  He wants to make us into His Beauty.

And as I look around the room  the masks are still on but I think I can see the flicker of a heart beating behind those eyes.  And I know that the God of all grace is moving here.

Later, out on the street, as we sit, on the curb of that Costa Rican street she comes out to talk.

She says, “Thank you for sharing your story.  Your story is my story.  It gives me hope that God can change me too.” And I think my heart might overflow, running liquid down that curb into gutter.

Because our story of His grace, might just be the story someone else needs to hear to believe that there is grace enough for even them. 

And the girl who tells me she was raped, she says it too, that this God of love, He didn’t leave her.  And she knows He is using it to tell His story of redeeming love to those who haven’t yet believed.  Those who need to believe that His grace can redeem anything.  And that God still makes beautiful things out of us, if we only trust in Him.

And grace pours down like rain again, growing beauty from what was broken.