Beauty in the hell that was ...

I've begun reading the book Veneer: Living Deeply in a Surface Society, by Jason Locy and Timothy Willard.  It explores the false-faces we put on to cover up the person that we truly are deep, deep down inside.

That 'person' is often scarred, wounded, tired, tested, and refined.  That 'person' has been - at times it feels - to hell and back in life.  Is it possible that good can come from those times?  Is it possible that beauty can come from it?

This quote exploded off the page at me, speaking to these very questions ...

True Beauty, some say, resides at the threshold of pain.  This is why we can call the crucifixion beautiful.  Not because we are barbarians, but because there`s an inherent truth and goodness in it.  Christ lays his life down for all of humankind, past, present, and future.  This is good; he is good.  And his goodness points us to truth, truth of redemption, truth of coming restoration, truth of forgiveness.

This is why we can look back on pain in our lives and call it beautiful.  It wasn`t beautiful then; it was hell.  But from that hell grew a shoot, and from that shoot a leaf, and life sprang up where hell resides; that is beautiful.  God makes it so.

These truths are reflected in the song Beautiful Things, by the band Gungor.  Enjoy the video and may you learn to see beauty in the pain as you find restoration through the work of God in you.