something beautiful

Our children run around the yard with torn up leaves and sticks, playing airplanes. Even though motorcars and other toys are available for them to play with, they treasure these airplanes. "Voom voom!" round and round the red-dirt yard they run. "Auntie see? Auntie see?" They look at me, to make sure my eyes are watching them. I smile, pretending I haven't seen this a million times before. Pretending this is something new. "Yes, I see! So cool, so cool!" But today, for the first time, I actually do see.

They come up to me with a leaf and twig in hand, "Auntie! Aeroplane aeroplane! Make aeroplane," they beg. I open my hands to receive these dirt-covered twigs and leaves. "Aeroplane Auntie." In my hands lay twigs and leaves, making mud marks on my hands. I want to ask… An airplane, really? But you have toys inside, why are you playing with garbage? Because what I see is something that most people sweep up out of their yard and get rid of, but they see the beautiful toy airplane it can become. 

These children, they never stop teaching me. It's always an unintentional teaching, in them doing nothing but living and being. But they continue to teach me all the same [the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these, yes?]. These children with their toy aeroplanes made of twigs and leaves find beauty in what I see as purposeless. They run up to me, begging me to make it into a beautiful 'aeroplane'. And after 3 long months, I finally get it.

I run to Him with my life in my hands, begging Him to make it into something beautiful. My dirty, broken life. It's messy, and I'm ugly. I know the depth of the ugliness in my heart; the sin that entangles and stains; the pride and selfishness that, once they've taken root, are hard to remove. Trapped in this life of being just a dirty twig and falling apart leaf, I have hopes and dreams. I imagine what my life could be. Just as my kids imagine their twigs becoming airplanes, I imagine my life becoming something new, something beautiful. 

I can't make my life into anything. On my own, I can't make it mean much. But I know He can. He can make it into something beautiful. My messy life can become beautiful when, and only when, I surrender it to become part of His plan for this earth. So I run to Him -the Maker of beautiful things- with my life in my hands. I run to the cross, where precious and holy blood was shed. I run to the place where His death gives me a chance at a new, beautiful life. I run to the God who made Adam, the One who makes life rise from the dust. I run to the smelly stable, where in a feeding trough the Babe who is the Savior of the world lays. I run hard, desperate and hopeful.. my feet pounding and lungs straining for breath. "Father! Please, make this broken life into something beautiful!" 

 "All around hope is springing up from this old ground; life is being found. You make beautiful things out of the dust; You make beautiful things out of us." 

Thank You for seeing us, for all that we are, and still loving us. Please don't stop. Take our broken lives and make us into something to be part of Your beautiful plan.