Out Of The Wreckage

“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”

—Isaiah 43:19

My friend Steve says that God doesn’t speak to everyone the same way, but that he generally speaks the same way over and over again to each person. I think that’s absolutely true. God generally speaks to me through grand gestures. Actually I think he speaks to me first in whispers, and that I don’t listen until he’s shouting. I regret this, and I think certain seasons of my life could have been a little easier had I been a better listener.

But I’m learning. It’s human to struggle. It’s human to nurse a broken heart, to wonder if the pain will ever let up, to howl through your tears every once in a while. And the best, most redeeming, exciting thing I could imagine, from the smashed-up, broken place I’ve been, is that something beautiful could blossom out of the wreckage. That’s the goal.

This is what I know: God can make something beautiful out of anything, out of darkness and trash and broken bones. He can shine light into the blackest night, and he leaves glimpses of hope all around us. An oyster, a sliver of moon, one new bud on a black branch. New life and new beauty are all around us, waiting to be discovered, waiting to be seen.