Remade

Today, I am deeply grateful for those of you who have supported the Dial Hope Foundation with a financial donation. So many people benefit from your giving!

M. H. Schubert shares the story about a group of fishermen in the Scottish highlands who regularly gathered for tea and discussed the day’s catch. As the waitress set down a cup of tea, it accidentally got knocked against the wall, leaving a really ugly stain. Noticing what had happened, one of the other guests got up and went to the wall. He took a crayon and began sketching around the stain. Unbelievably, a beautiful piece of art emerged – a picture of a stag with magnificent antlers. The artist as it turns out, was Sir Edwin Landseer, one of England’s most well-respected painters.

Schubert made the point that if an artist can transform an unsightly stain into a beautiful masterpiece, think about what God can do with our past mistakes and failures.

It is true. We worship a God who wastes nothing.

Sometimes we despair of our past. Sometimes we can’t let go of mistakes we’ve made or events that happened to us. Sometimes it might feel as though we have wasted months or years. Or, we find ourselves in a situation that seems meaningless.

But if we are open to it, if we’re willing to learn from it, to grow from it, (sometimes making amends, sometimes letting go of anger or bitterness or blame, sometimes just simply trusting), God will pick up the broken pieces, and even use this experience, these pieces, this brokenness in unexpected and sometimes even beautiful ways.

Let us pray: Loving and gracious God, take our mistakes and our failures of the past. As we lay them down before you, we ask you to heal us, strengthen us, and refashion us more and more into your images. Amen.