'cause I am a sinner
if it's not one thing, it's another
caught up in words, tangled in lies
but You are a Savior
and You take brokenness aside
and make it beautiful, beautiful
(Brokenness Aside, All Sons and Daughters)
This has been a trait of God that I have admired for a long time, and it seems to have been following me around ever since I started seeking out characteristics of God.
The most obvious place to view this characteristic of God is just simply walking outside your house. Now, I live in Winnipeg and it's currently winter and it's been a bit of a mild winter so there's dirty snow everywhere. Finding beauty in the middle of a mild, dirty winter in Winnipeg is a little difficult. But one morning, I woke up, got dressed, and walked to the bus stop just down the street from me, and I noticed that there was hoarfrost on the trees.
I realize that the above picture doesn't really do it justice (probably because it was taken with my old, dingy iPhone), but it captured the contrasted beauty nonetheless. There was such a beautiful tree beside what seemed like a very dirty, un-beautiful mess of a street.
The second most obvious place to find a depiction of God's beautiful handiwork is on the very first book, very first chapter of the Bible. This is a story I have blogged about before and a story that has probably been preached on/talked about many, many, many times. I'm not going to write about how God created everything and it was good because everyone knows those obvious truths already. I just want to point out how the universe looked before God created a bunch of beautiful stuff. The universe was described as being "formless", "void", "dark", and "deep" (1:2). Those aren't exactly nice-sounding words. God took that formless, void, dark, and deep place and made it into something beautiful.
I didn't realize until this past month that another place to find this characteristic of God is in history. God has been making beautiful things from crappy situations for as long as crappy situations have existed. A particular example of this would have to be the Holocaust. This was one of the worst tragedies of human history, and yet, there was still beauty hidden within the darkest of times. Such heartbreakingly beautiful stories of heroism and devotion to God came out of such a mess. Not to mention, the ending of the Holocaust resulted in the re-establishment of the nation of Israel, which the Jewish people hadn't seen for a very, very long time.
Lastly, I believe the most important place you can see this characteristic of God is within the own workings of your life. Everyone sees the brokenness of life in different ways and in different places. There are broken hearts, broken people, broken relationships, broken families, broken nations, broken governments, and broken minds. But, fear not, God can make those things beautiful too. Tucked away in the book that proclaims that everything under the sun is meaningless, there is a verse that says, "He [God] has made everything beautiful in its time" (Eccl. 3:11).
Our God has a knack for mending broken hearts. I, personally, have seen broken people be put back together by God's amazing grace. Broken relationships and broken families have been reconciled. Broken nations have proclaimed victory over their adversaries. Broken governments have been overthrown. Broken minds have been glued back together.
So God is the maker of beautiful things. A simpler way to express this would've been to use the term "creator", but I didn't want to, because God is so much more than just a creator. Any old person can create things; I even create things. Believe me, if you ask any writer, painter, architect, chemist, engineer, activist, etc., they will tell you: not everything they create is beautiful. (Trust me, you wouldn't want to read some of the things I write.)
So, not only does God create beautiful things, but He can orchestrate an ugly mess to look ravishing.
