Finding Beauty in Brutal Reality

Donate your car! Finding Beauty in Brutal Reality

By Pastor Brad Heintz

The other day I was driving down NASA Parkway and turned right onto TX-146, that major construction zone we used to call a highway, and I came to a dead stop. A major traffic jam caused by construction. Have you been stuck in traffic lately?

It is becoming almost a daily occurrence. So here I was on a hot Houston day, in my daughter’s jeep without AC, crawling up the Kemah Bridge, and wearing out my clutch and calf muscle. Sorry to say, my first thoughts were of frustration. Then I looked to my left and saw the beautiful sun shining on the gorgeous Galveston Bay and a smile came to my face. Beauty in the midst of brutal reality. If I hadn’t been stopped on the bridge, I could have missed this beauty!

We live in a world that is beautiful and broken at the same time. We visit the Grand Canyon and are amazed at awesome grandeur and stark beauty of a major water erosion issue from the past. My Bible tells me that our reality is both beauty and brokenness. God made a perfect universe and people broke it.

I believe that the last few years have put a real exclamation point to that sentence. Yet, as a believer in Jesus Christ, my Bible also tells me that His resurrection is real (1 Corinthians 15) which means that Jesus takes our brokenness, heartache and tragedies and creates glory, calling, and meaning in our lives.

I was listening to a podcast recently and the host was interviewing an author of a new book “Redeeming Heartache: How Past Suffering Reveals Our True Calling,” by Dan B. Allender and Cathy Loerzel. Cathy said, “Thank God the resurrection is real – because you can’t live in this world and not see all the heartache, trauma and tragedy and yet we are also left looking at such beauty and gifting. So much of our work is figuring out how we live in this tension.”

What in your past or current life is brutal or broken? What if that could be recreated into something beautiful? I believe it is possible, through faith in Jesus Christ, that God’s presence in my life can remold, remake and reclaim me and my brutal brokenness (Isaiah 61). How about you?

What does it take? Turn and trust in God and you will have His resurrection power present in your life. Lean into the reality that you are a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17-21) and let the old die away. Look for God’s provision and purpose so that your pain is not in vain. And if you need help, connect with a friend, a counselor, a church or a group because most, if not all of us, don’t have to do this alone.

That’s one of the reasons I pastor a church and shepherd people who want to heal and help others heal. We aren’t perfect, far from it, but we are turning to God who creates beauty out of brokenness.The next time you are in the brutal reality of a construction zone or something worse, take a moment to look around, connect with God and let Him show you the beauty that He wants to emerge through your reality.

Pastor Brad Heintz is the founding pastor of Living Word Church in Taylor Lake Village, Texas, a vibrant familystyle, non-denominational gathering of believers who take a pure, simple and real approach to faith and life. www. LWCBA.org