You Make Beautiful Things
One of my favorite songs is “You Make Beautiful Things” from Gungor, popular around 2011. Songs get attached to major events and help us to process meaning, find words or feelings to help us express emotion, or speak to the context of the time. In Alabama, 2011 saw one of the worst severe weather days in our history. Over 200 people lost their lives in multiple storms that raged on April 27th, 2011. Hundreds more homes were lost and small communities wiped off the map. It was horrendous.
We also experienced communities, neighbors, and groups coming together to rebuild. Auburn University and the University of Alabama competed to build Habitat Homes. Community recovery groups aided in repairs and thousands came to serve. In West Alabama, ARM hosted several teams between 2011-2012 working in Sumter County rebuilding.
One evening, we presented slide shows of the devastation – broken homes, broken families, broken everything. But then we cast pictures of people working together, serving together, and rebuilding. All the while, this song, “You Make Beautiful Things,” played. It spoke of resurrection, new life and hope out of pain, hurt, and devastation. Hope was resurrected.
Ten years later, this song is still extremely relevant and poignant. Our context for the past three years points to several disasters – hurricanes, tornadoes, ice, and a global pandemic. The pandemic reversed the response we typically see in disasters. Whereas storms drive us outdoors creating opportunities to be with and serve our neighbors, COVID-19, has done something much more terrible. It drove us indoors. It locked us away. It shut us out. It caused extreme division. It isolated us.
It does not have the last answer. During this Easter, resurrection has a new light. Hope from the vaccine (which God gave scientists the mind to create), is ever so slowly restoring us to a place where we get to gather together again. Outdoor, Easter sunrise services especially seemed to say to COVID, you are not keeping us away this time. People from all backgrounds began to once again, come together, united in worship, renewal, and life. Death is coming to life. God, you make beautiful things. You make beautiful things from the dust, you make beautiful things out of us.
Resurrection is bringing that which was dead back to life. It reclaims the beauty covered in the ashes. Pain from loss can be repurposed into generosity, kindness, and gratitude. And in all things we remember, God wins and always overcomes through the grit, resilience and love displayed by his resurrection people.
You Make Beautiful Things!
Reflection: Read John 11:1-44
1) What has been the most difficult part of the pandemic or a disaster for you and your family?
2) Name some of the feelings and emotions that you felt during this time?
3) What was this Easter like for you? Did you think about Jesus’s death and resurrection in a new way? What was it?
4) What does resurrection look like for you?
5) Where are the signs of beauty coming from ashes?
6) What is one way you can encourage someone else with these thoughts on resurrection?
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