BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE
“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.” -Elizabeth Kubler Ross
When this quote was given to me, I was watching the Sheriff escort my sister to a local hospital. She had just been committed to her second stay at a psych ward. The year before, my brother-in-law, at age 30, was diagnosed with Colon Cancer, bringing him to months of chemo, radiation, and two surgeries at Mayo Clinic. Then there was my right leg, going numb. At age 23, I was told I had had a herniated disc for over 8 months and needed emergency surgery.
My story is not unusual. Many of you who are reading this have probably suffered much more dismay than my mere 26 years of life. Cancer, unexpected deaths, lost jobs, lost hope, lost dreams, miscarriages, and illnesses that seem impossible to cure…
Yet these squalls seem to scream something more than that hopelessness that overwhelms. I feel the Potter’s hands molding, the smell of refining in the fire, the rumble of walls of arrogance and self-sufficiency crumbling. I see the tender hands of God reshaping something filthy, vulgar, and putrid into something holy, forgiven…and beautiful.
“Though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed” (I Peter 1:6b-7).
Trials will persist, cancer will still invade, and deaths will not end, but God’s grace is FOREVER. He gives courage to take on each day and to climb out of our holes; that is, if He doesn’t lift us out of them Himself. These storms happen only to make us into the children He designed us to be. And though they usually don’t make sense at the time, He gives flourishing grace to not only survive, but soar to the highest peak.
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” (James 1:2-4).
As Kubler-Ross said above, “Beautiful people do not just happen.” James recognized how trials are used by God to transform believers into a closer image of our beautiful Savior. Mature and complete people of God do not just happen. Rest in the loveliness that Christ is pruning and preparing you for something incredible – wait in expectation and let Him swallow your surfacing stresses.
“Are you tired? Worn out? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me, and you'll learn to live freely and lightly" (Matthew 11:29-30, paraphrased from The Message).
