Posted by Ecclesiastes 3:11 – He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.
There is beauty in the rain, with the rain comes the rainbow (cliche I know). With rain comes growth. At the time, challenges can be hard, painful…but God can turn that pain into something beautiful – eventually, in His time.
He can turn grief into fond memories, into an experience that one day can turn into walking alongside someone else who is currently in the depth of it. He can turn physical pain into strength, grit and determination. He can turn waiting into a lesson on patience, or being still. He can turn financial stress into learning more about trust and leaning into God. Life throws a lot at us, and He can turn it into something beautiful. He can move us, move with us through any situation. He is the giver of courage and strength, and can turn us into resilient people who have a rich experience behind us. The experiences we go through can be a future blessing when shared through empathy. To be able to walk along side someone else and say, ‘I’ve been there’, or ‘I truly understand’, or ‘This is what helped me’, or simply ‘Yes, I know, I am here’…that is powerful. Mohsin Hamid said ‘Empathy is about finding echoes of another person in yourself.’ That’s what binds us as humans – our shared experiences.
The lyrics of the old chorus goes like this:
In His time,
In His time
He makes all things beautiful
In His time.
Lord my life to you I bring
May each song I have to sing
Be to you a lovely thing
In Your time.
So we offer our pain, sadness, joys, excitement, weariness all to God as an offering. An offering that God can turn into a blessing down the track, a blessing for someone else, and a richness for our own story. And what a blessing to be able to speak into others’ lives and encourage them them that one day, God will make beauty of their pain.
Rebecca St James is a Christian song writer and performer, who I first came to love in the 1990’s, in my youth. Since then her brothers Joel and Luke have stormed the world with their band ‘For King and Country’. I love their music and love their story. Their story is all about how a family moved to America following the call of God. They had nothing and learned dependancy on God. They learned that God makes all things beautiful in His time. They came together to make a movie of their story, and the three siblings sang this song together.
Life by the Word 