Thursday, April 21, 2011

Beautiful

"He has made everything beautiful in its time.  He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end." Ecclesiastes 3:11


This verse was one of several that our Pastor used in his message a couple of weeks ago.  As I have since thought about this verse, there have been many things that have come to mind.  


"He has made everything beautiful in its time."  There is no doubt in my mind that Satan intended everything we have been through with Sophie Kate to harm us...to harm our family, to harm our relationship with Christ, and to harm our witness.  Satan intended these circumstances to cause a huge distance between us and God thereby damaging our witness as followers of Christ.  Instead, God has and is continuing to make all things beautiful...not only is our relationship with Christ stronger but our marriage is stronger.  Also,  in the years since SK has been born the hearts of our boys have been tendered toward God.  Two of our three boys have accepted Christ as their Savior...that is a beautiful thing to God and us!  These things didn't happen immediately, they all occurred over time, God's time.


"He has made everything beautiful in its time."  He has made all of us beautiful to Him.  We were once separated from God b/c of our sin, but through His Son Jesus we have been given the gift of forgiveness of sin and eternal life in Heaven with our Creator.  If we have recognized and confessed our sinful nature, accepted His forgiveness of sin through the death and resurrection of His Son and accepted Him into our heart and life, then we have been made beautiful and blameless before a Holy God.  


"He has made everything beautiful in its time."  How could our Redeemer being beaten beyond recognition b/c of our sin be beautiful?  How could the death of our Savior on the cross be beautiful?  We don't typically associate those events with the word beautiful...it is the love behind it that is beautiful to us as believers.  It is the most beautiful picture of love that there has ever been, love that cannot be described by the limited words we have in our vocabulary.  God's love displayed for us...beautiful. 

Happy Easter!    

1 comment:

The Speck family said...

This is a beautifully written post~ thank you for your wise, wise words. Sophie Kate looks so beautiful in her smocked dress! I thought of you all this week because my Bennett started the vital stem therapy and we are going to be going twice a week for a while~ thankfully he responded ok to it, so I am hoping it continues to be a positive experience. Thanks again for sharing how SK did with that therapy. Happy Easter to your beautiful family!