You make beautiful
things
You make beautiful
things out of the dust.
- Gungor
A few weeks ago, my
friend Jordan Raycroft, a Canadian
singer songwriter with mad talent, asked if I would be willing to fill in at a
performance for his usual violinist. I felt incredibly honored to have been
asked and quickly agreed. After a few marathon practice sessions, I found
myself in a tiny back room of a church having a pre-show band meeting with a
bass player and jazz drummer I had only just met wearing make-up (a rarity) and
new clothes I hoped would fool the audience into thinking I belonged there.
Opening for Jordan’s
band was a 17-year old girl, playing her guitar and pouring out her heart to a
room full of youth. She was kind of country, and I smiled to myself as I heard
her sing of summer camp romances, broken hearts, hope and expectation for what
lies ahead. I felt I was listening to the slightly more confident younger
version of myself - less jaded, more hopeful, laughing easier.
I started wondering
at faded hopefulness wondering in my own life; what caused it and how to wake
myself up to it hope again.
When I first started
this blog, I was determined to recapture the Joy in my life, and honestly felt
like I had begun to succeed. My motivation began slipping when I heard story
after story of friends dealing with their own heaviness:
A
dear friend, cancer free for two years, in and out of the hospital battling
complications and medication side-affects
Friends
of my in-laws, sharing with me their fresh grief over the sudden, unexplained
death of their son, in his early 20’s
A
woman I love as my own sister, and have known for nearly a decade, breaking the
silence on horrible abuse in her own life
A
friend’s child lost to cancer
My own experience has
softened my own heart to others’ pain and I began to feel like there were just
too many reasons to bleed. The Joy Project was temporarily abandoned.
Since then, I’ve
begun not to just know but rather to know and internalize, that experiencing
Joy isn’t the result of a one time battle, but the fruit of a continuous
struggle to notice all that’s good in your life already. Ann Voskamp describes
them as ‘gifts’.
You can read about
her journey HERE.
Something happened
earlier this week that inspired me to pick up my sword again – to find things
to be thankful for and to continue this battle for Joy. On Saturday morning I
sat in a room full of women while a friend of mine courageously picked up a
microphone and publicly broke the silence on a history of abuse in her own
life. She shared what she had experienced, how it continued to affect her as an
adult and the coping mechanisms she has used to emotionally and mentally deal with
her pain. She is one of my closest friends. I love her dearly. I had no idea. I
could feel my heart breaking.
Then she did
something that amazed me and gave me hope for my own journey.
She put her cue cards
down, moved to the keyboard and sang a solo version of Gungor’s You Make
Beautiful Things”
All this pain
I wonder if I’ll ever find my way
I wonder if my life could really change at all.
All this earth
Could all that is lost ever be found?
Could a garden come up from this ground at all?
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust.
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us.
All around
Hope is springing up from this old ground
Out of chaos life is being found in You
What Truth. What
courage. What hopefulness.
This woman amazes me.
I’ve been thinking
lately about the story of Joseph, one of the 12 brothers from which Jewish
lineage stems. This is the ultimate tale of beautiful things coming out of the
dust. As a youth, Joseph was beaten and bound by his own brothers, thrown into
a pit and later sold to some Egyptians. For years afterward, he suffered
slavery, false accusations, and imprisonment until much later he was brought
before Pharaoh to interpret a dream. As a result became Pharaoh’s 2nd
in command, in charge of planning and implementing a food rationing/storage
system that would later save the lives of his brothers, preserving his family
line.
Here’s the part I’ve
been hanging onto.
When Joseph is faced
with his brothers again, who are at his feet and terrified of his planned
course of action to repay them for their cruelty, this is how he responds,
“You
meant evil against me,” (the Hebrew word used here means ‘weave’), “But God
rewove it together for good.” Genesis 50:20
For Joseph, for his
brothers and for all of Egypt, God made something beautiful out of the dust.
And He can do it for
us too.
He gives good gifts.
His timing is perfect. His ways are not my ways, but He has the whole picture
and I don’t. Until things become clearer, I’m going to trust and know that hope
is not the stuff of fairy tales. It is for me too, and although I may not yet
see it, something beautiful will come out of this dust.
