Light in the Darkness

The Christmas lights glisten in front of me here in my comfortable chair, in my comfortable home, in my comfortable life. I can't help but believe that you were comfortable in heaven. The place of no pain, no tears, no sin. Paradise...Perfect....Peace -- Comfortable. But when the world became dark and needed their maker you knew you had to be their light and Savior. The second you left heaven for earth you experienced discomfort. Were you just an innocent infant? Or did you recall of your heavenly decent? Did you long for the place you once knew so well, while laying in a lowly manger? 

As you grew you experienced the pain of cuts and bruises, tummy aches, and growing pains...for the first time ever. You experienced the sting of a splinter, the pull of a loose tooth, and maybe even the hurt of loosing a friend or two. All of these feelings...so new and yet because of who you are you knew how to handle them.

As you grew older the pain became much deeper. It was no longer just physical pain, but emotional pain as well. You began to feel empathy for the sick and bleeding, compassion for the poor and needy, rejection from the rich and prosperous, blasphemy from the kings and prophets, despair from the death of loved ones, and sorrow when you knew your time had come. 

Never once did you experience any of these things while in heaven. But because you knew what had to be done, you willingly came. 

Soon the physical discomforts became unbearable.
You were
spat on,
punched,
shoved,
kicked,
and chained.
Then they beat you, tore your skin apart with whips, dug a crown made of thorns into your skull, broke your bones, hammered nails into your hands...into your feet, and then they hung you on a cross...left you there until you died.
They killed you.

Never...once...did you experience these things in heaven. Never. Once.

So why? Why would you leave a place where the only things you received were praise, singing, worship, respect, honor, adoration, and love. For me? How could that be? I'm imperfect, insecure, and unfaithful. How can it be for me? 

How can it be for this country?
Full of sin, murder, blasphemy, rebellion, and darkness.
How can it be for this world?
Groaning, destroying cities with hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, wars, nuclear bombs, and massacres. 

Life appears to have gone full circle. Back to the way it was when you first came...bringing light into darkness.

Although, you experienced pain, there was a plan. In your power and deity you did not allow the end to be death. 3 days later you came to life and the light shone brighter than it ever had. All of the pain and hurt suddenly made sense. You came to save the imperfect, insecure, and unfaithful, like me for all of eternity. And now as the end draws near we remember of your promise to leave your home one more time. This time experiencing no pain. Only to take your saints with you.

In the midst of all the darkness around us we have to remember that we have hope. The light will overcome the darkness and soon there will be no more pain. We must remember the true meaning of Christmas; our Savior descended from paradise to perform the perfect sacrifice, in spite of the  painful price. 

This is what Beauty is

The year before it seemed I had leaped forward
Moved toward the places and spaces You'd reserved, just for me.
Yet this one insecurity slowly and secretly takes over me. It's one I've never learned to shake,
one chain that never seems to break.
I find myself face to face with the traces and the scars it leaves, faintly visible from afar.


Does every girl bear the treacherous weight of this burden?
This burden that drags and nags at the depths of your soul,
Convincing you that even the largest paid toll isn't ever going to be enough
to cover the old and make up the new into something perfect; beautiful you.


As I've learned beauty masked will flake and break you fast.
Beauty from the outside looking in pales to the beauty deep within
and beauty covered with bandages, hiding the scars never really was beautiful at all.


What if scars are what defined the beauty we call…Savior?


Simple as it seems, the favor poured out on us was far from the perfection we try to picture.
In fact, the phrase “it is finished,” requires no additions and no renditions.
It was finished when holes were pierced with nails in fierce anger and sneers in spite of prayer.
It was finished when perfection met resurrection after carrying the heaviest burden of them all…
and now making my 'burden' seem terribly small.


How can this be beautiful?
The most wonderful, powerful, merciful and graceful One became like me…
Taking on all the traces and scars I've hidden for none to see.
Yes, those He put on, willingly.


How can this not be beautiful?
Because… These scars are what define the beauty that we call SAVIOR
MAKER, FATHER, CREATOR, PROVIDER, HEALER, REDEEMER, RESCUER, COMFORTER, KEEPER, COUNSELOR, AND MASTER.


So how can I be beautiful?
How am I beautiful?


I am beautiful because of His
Resurrection.


His rising from the dead resurrects my soul.
His waking and walking from the grave awakens me to be made whole.


This is what beauty is… My Savior stepping down from all the glory that was His,
becoming a lowly human, born with no sin,
bearing the burden, wearing the scars from all the faces and the places we've been,
and then resurrecting and ascending to heaven once again.
This allowing us to one day be made beautiful- just as He is.


Now the call for today is to simply say thank you for these scars that make us who we are....
To say thank you for the scars that allow us to know you so close, rather than so far....
And thank you Father,
for These scars are what define the beauty that we call SAVIOR