The Ugly-Beautiful

As I read Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Gifts, it once again (as it does every time I pick it up) touches my heart. I sat last night, thinking about our babies, the newest, smallest ones in particular. In my thankfulness to have these little lives in our home, I also hurt over them. How can it be that something I am so thankful for, something I look at with such joy, can be the same thing that someone else looked at with contempt, desperation, even hate? Enough to discard, to throw out, to dump.

Then, I read today Ann's words. Looking at...."the mess of this world, and I see - this, all this, is what the French call d'un beau affreux, what the Germans call hubsh-hasslich - the ugly-beautiful. That which is perceived as ugly transfigures into beautiful."

What some people, most likely the birth mothers of these babies, saw as ugly, not worth keeping, a burden or hinderance, I see - and God sees - as beautiful. And what a joy, privilege, and humbling blessing it is to be a part of the beautiful. The circumstance of God raising these babies up on His wings, as eagles, and setting them on higher places, redeeming their lives from the pit.

I am thankful. I am beyond thankful. I have seen the grace (charis) that God has bestowed upon these little lives. I have seen the eucharisteo in this situation, this season of my life. And now I experience the joy (chara) in it. I find true joy, the heart-filling, all consuming joy in what He is doing around me. How He moves someone else's ugly into my - into His - beautiful.

Annabelle's life - dropped into the dark depths of a pit latrine, literally into the filth and waste of this world....brought to a higher place of peace and love.

Winnie's life - wrapped in a plastic bag, dropped by a fence, made to look like trash being discarded on the walkway....brought into the open daylight as a precious piece of life.

Noah's life - set aside, dropped off in an unfinished, abandoned building where he himself was abandoned, to be forgotten by the one who birthed and nursed him....brought into a home where he will forever be remembered.

And each of these little lives, will eventually be an even bigger part of someone else's beautiful, their joy! Oh, what joy a family will have when they one day welcome these precious ones into their family as true gifts! My heart wells with a fulness of joy when I think of the possibilities that lie ahead....these little ones being a part of the healing of a hurt family suffering from childlessness, or being a part of the growing and multiplying of a family's love. Being a part of a future.

"The ugly can be beautiful. The dark can give birth to life; suffering can deliver grace."

These little babies are a picture of lives, situations and circumstances transfigured into something beautiful.

"Because eucharisteo is how Jesus, at the Last Supper, showed us to transfigure all things - take the pain that is given, give thanks for it, and transform it into a joy that fulfills all emptiness."