Something Beautiful from Something Ugly

During summer vacation in the early years of our marriage Mary and I went on a guided tour of a large cave in Montana – the Lewis Clark Caverns. You walk through these winding and really narrow passageways, admiring the wonders that God has created from stalagmites, stalactites, and underground rivers. When we entered this one large chamber, the guide directed his light to this high vaulted ceiling. You can probably guess what animals we saw hanging out up there - bats, lots of bats. The guide told us that the early explorers of this cave had found large quantities of what she called "bat guano." If you don't know what that is, never mind. It's gross, that's what it is. But they made lots of money selling that stuff. I thought, "What good could bat dung possibly be?" Surprise - they make gunpowder out of it! And even more surprisingly, they can turn that gross stuff into makeup - like mascara and lipstick! Makes me think twice about kissing my wife!

Well, that got me thinking about "Something Beautiful From Something Ugly." It's amazing how people can turn something seemingly useless and ugly into something useful and even beautiful. It's much more amazing how God does that with our lives! In fact, He's wanting to do that for you - to make something beautiful and useful of the ugliest things that have happened in your life.

One way He does that is described in God's Word- 2 Corinthians 1:3-4: "The Father of compassion and the God of all comfort... comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God."

I don't know what kind of "troubles" you've been through - it could be anything from sickness, to abuse, to addiction, to grief - but whatever the trouble, I know it's made you need the Lord more than ever before. And so you experienced His compassion, His comfort, His strength, and His support in deeply personal ways.

Now, in a sense, God wants you to be for other hurting people what He has been for you. That's how He takes the worst things that ever happened to you and makes them into something beautiful. Amy was in our daughter Sara’s class throughout school. She was the daughter of the vice-principal of Frontier Collegiate Institute in Cranberry Portage, MB. She seemed to have everything going for her - good looks, smarts. But inside she was a lonely, hurting girl. She came to camp and accepted Christ. She faithfully attended church. I had her in my Sunday School class for a couple of years. She went overseas to attend a Bible School in New Zealand and there found the love of her life.

Mary & I were invited to attend her after-wedding in Saskatchewan. She shared with me how lonely her growing up years had been - she had considered suicide many times in her early adolescent years. Instead, she gave her life to Christ. She said if it hadn't been for camp and church she didn't think she would have survived and she thanked me for being an encouragement to her during those years. Today she and her husband are still in New Zealand - with two lovely children and teaching in a Bible Institute impacting other young lives. She and her husband have a ministry to people. She knows how to help lonely people because she had been lonely. She knows that Jesus can make something beautiful out of your life.

Sharon, another friend, was sexually abused by an uncle in her youth. When she brought that awful garbage to Jesus, He began to heal her emotionally and spiritually. She went on to have a vital ministry at Winkler Bible Institute for many years and was a popular speaker at Simonhouse Bible Camp Youth retreats. Today she has a teaching and counseling ministry in B.C. and happily married to Kevin who is involved in pastoral ministry. Her history of abuse became her strange credentials for caring for abuse victims.

My friend Brent has a tremendous ministry to young people from the inner city. For many years he directed Pembina Valley Bible Camp in southern Manitoba and today directs Brightwood Ranch Camp at Evansburg, AB a ministry of Hope Mission out of Edmonton. What makes him so effective is his tender and compassionate attitude toward kids, especially those from the inner city. You know why? He says it's because he remembers the hurt he experienced as a child in a terribly dysfunctional home living in the inner city of Winnipeg. God has recycled his wounds into a life-changing compassion. He is happily married with 4 exuberant children.

God wants to do that for you - if you'll bring Him all that pain, all those wounds, all those memories of the dark times of life. He wants to take all that ugly stuff - stuff that looks like its useless - and He wants to turn it into a treasure - into something very beautiful - a tender, compassionate, helping heart in you. Because of what Christ can do with the waste of our lives, the ones who have been hurt the most turn out to be some of the greatest healers in the world.