Beautiful Things

 Recently one of my good friends, Brie, recommended a song. Brie was one of the girls on the Real Life team that came to Swazi last year. (a lot of you guys have probably listened to me babble about how awesome they are)  I was skype-chatting with her today when she told me about this song by The Michael Gungor Band called Beautiful Things and how it reminded her of life here in Swaziland...

All this pain...

   Swaziland is a battlefield. Kids and Gogos are dying left and right from the horrible HIV/AIDS epidemic here. It is a place where death is almost tangible, it is thick in the air, causing everyone to trudge through it on a day-to-day basis...

... I wonder if I'll ever find my way?...

  Everyone here is daily faced with questions like: "Will I survive today?" or "Am I going to wake up tomorrow?" All of the death surrounding this place causes people to question their ability to make there way through life normally...

...I wonder if my life could really change? At all...



   People here also question if they can make a change. They think that if so-and-so lost his parents very young, couldn't afford to make it through high school, contracted HIV and died at 20, they will never be able to be anything. They doubt their ability to make a difference in their community...

...All this Earth, Could all that is lost ever be found? Could a garden come up from this ground? At all?...

    There is so much of Swaziland...A nation almost destroyed by HIV/AIDS. It's overwhelming sometimes, the immensity of it all. All of the death and pain. A once fertile, beautiful nation that took just one person infected with HIV to undo, will take years to tie back up...



...You make beautiful things! You make beautiful things out of the dust!...

   The hope that this nation has is that Even amidst the pain, the death, the overwhelming size and depth of the issues here, God can make beautiful things out of this dust. He can take our sin and shame, our shortcomings, everything, and make them into something beautiful that furthers his great Kingdom...

  ...You make beautiful things! You make beautiful things out of us!...

   As well as our sin and shortcomings, God can make beautiful things out of our very selves. He uses us in amazing ways to bring him more glory. Yes! Even us, shameful sinners hiding behind our fear.God can take us and mould us into what HE wants for his Kingdom...

...All around, Hope is springing up from this old ground.

Out of chaos life is being found, in you...

   It is amazing when we begin to see what God is doing in our lives! If we would just look around we would see that he is making all things work together for our good!...

...You make me new. You are making me new...

   Jesus died so that we may have life. So that we could become new creations. Born again through the Spirit. We are made new by God's great love for us through Jesus' sacrifice.

                                                  

   What I see in this song is a message of hope for Swaziland. It is so true to life here! This song reminds us that even though so much pain and death exist here in Swaziland, our Lord has the ability to make all things new. The ability to clean up our horrible missions and make us into something beautiful.

   I praise God for what he is doing to make things beautiful here in Swaziland. I pray that he will continue to make it evident to us and the people here that despite our sin and shame, we can be made beautiful through him...



'You make beautiful things, you make beautiful things out of us'