I have this amazing friend from college, Brandi Haile. She is an awesome musician and she wrote a song that I just love called "Galaxy of Pieces." I was listening to that song (on my new ipod) on my way home from school today, and I love these lyrics:
And I had this dream that you were shattered / and there were pieces of you scattered all around on the ground / so many pretty pieces that I found / And I knew that I could never / glue you back together / but if I could / I was sure you would / be the prettiest stained-glass window pane / I'd ever seen / Prettiest pain I'd ever seen."
Notice the change from "pane" to "pain," which was something I noticed only today. And I started to wonder how pain could be beautiful, if it could be beautiful. The more I thought about it, the more true it became, that there can be beauty in pain.
Scripture says it quite clearly, that God will "provide for those who grieve in Zion--to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair . . ." (Isaiah 61:3)
It is true that some of the most beautiful people I have known have been those who have gone through great amounts of pain and suffering. The people I am thinking of have endured things I can't imagine. And, even so, maybe because of . . . they are wise, giving, hopeful; they are open, without judgment; they have shining faces and lovely, honest smiles.
So maybe it is that beauty comes out of the pain, as the verse from Isaiah suggests. That pain, mourning, and despair can be traded for a crown of beauty, the oil of gladness, a garment of praise.
I hope so. I hope so.
Brandi's song spoke to me today in a way it never had. I love the image of the person who can never really be the same again after being shattered by pain, but becoming something brilliant and even more beautiful than before.
I have told many people that I am not ready to go on some big journey with God yet, and I'm certainly still not. I have known for quite some time that there will never be a going "back" for me, but maybe I'm seeing some new hope that the going forward will be better than I thought, maybe less scary; that the "becoming" will be worth it, and that maybe I can become something beautiful (which is way more than I ever thought possible) after all.
1 comment:
I love these thoughts. Certainly pain only becomes beautiful and re-purposed in the hands of our Father, for only His power could do something like that. And be encouraged, my friend, b/c I was never able to view my "big journey" at the beginning...only in retrospect. When I was in the middle of it, it just seemed like day after monotonous day of banging my head against the same wall. Surely, it is GOD who works in you.
Anticipating with you the day when all our journeys end in communion with our Savior, Who endured the most Beautiful Pain of all.
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