It was an afternoon in early autumn. The sun warmly, gently met the cold sea breeze with me in-between them. My eyes glanced over the shining detritus left by waves – sand, stones, shells. I caught sight of unexpected colour and picked up a clam shell whose inside was brilliant satin violet. I held it and stared. Would I ever have seen this wonder of creation, had not the shell been opened and the clam surrendered its life? The ocean is full of comfortable clams, living in secret and safety, and we only see the ones on the surface, on the beaches, who have mostly died.

That little clam shell struck me silently with a sense of resonance, because I too know what it’s like to be properly broken open, to feel like death, to witness death. Yet in its breaking, its beauty shines, as though it had just been waiting for the opportunity. In the breaking open, there is beauty.

How can that be? Is it possible to find hope and life on the way through brokenness? Do we come across healing and relief by accident in this cynical, uncaring cosmos? Or, like shellfish and geodes, was it part of the design that our hearts carry treasure and can be remade and renewed after grief and death?

Yes, love. There is glory and wholeness on the other side of the break, the cracking, the collapse, the wound. I only make such an audacious claim because I see God making it. I see Him promising life without death one day. He walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death to a table He’s prepared for us, of feasting and blessing.¹

Look at how Jesus chose to resurrect Lazarus instead of merely healing him. The mourners questioned His abilities or couldn’t understand why He hadn’t come to save Lazarus’ life. But Jesus stood at His friend’s tomb, praying aloud for the benefit of the onlookers, that they would see the glory of God and ultimately believe in Him for a much deeper, everlasting salvation.²

Martha’s and Mary’s hearts had been broken open by their brother’s death, but then everything they knew about how death worked, its hold on us, its power over life – that was all obliterated when Jesus called him forth. Nothing but death could have prepared them for the beauty of victory over death. All of Jesus’ healings and resurrections and miracles happened in places of pain and illness and scarcity, and through them He showed Himself to be the One who has power over all creation and even death.

It would be foolhardy to attempt to explain why God works this way, why He allows death, sin, brokenness to have so many small victories. Who can know the mind of God? (Please don’t raise your hand.) I don’t know why He does, but I know that He works through the dark valley to forge strength, beauty, faith, character, hope. He kindles a small flame in the pitch black. Because only He can see in the dark, we have the opportunity to slowly realize what has always been true: HE is the resurrection and the life. We can only see when He illumines, when we walk in His light.

How precious is your steadfast love, O God! The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights. For with you is the fountain of life; in your light do we see light.

Psalm 36:7-9

So often, it takes coming to the end of ourselves to admit that we are not enough for ourselves. We don’t have the strength, the answers, the insight, the endurance, the power. We can’t make something from nothing. We can’t mend what’s broken. It takes struggling against a headwind in a storm at night to begin to get an inkling that we might not be in control after all. To get a glimpse of the true Light.

After Jesus multipled bread and fish for thousands and thousands of people who flocked to Him, He immediately sent His apostles, His closest followers, to cross the sea by boat. They worked all night against the wind until Jesus walked across the water to them in the dark of early morning. His supernatural presence naturally terrified them, but He reassured them that He was Himself, and as soon as He climbed into their boat, the wind stopped. ³

Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.

Mark 6:50

This is a God who makes scarce resources into abundance, who commands winds, whose mere presence is enough to calm fears. Who takes nothing and makes something, who takes destruction and makes glory, who takes death and makes life. Who disposes of kings, who separates waters, who makes water spring out of dry ground and rocks. Death can never really win against Him.

When we’re broken open, when we’re suffering or dying, or dying to ourselves. When we’re following Jesus and He calls us into hard, hard places and asks us to kill our pride or lay down our reputation or desires, or makes it clear that nothing else satisfies. When we’re at the end. May we remember the loaves multiplied in the desolate place and the ebenezers⁴ in our own lives where God has made something out of nothing. May we surrender before Him and determine to watch Him make beauty once again. May our hearts be kindling for the fire He lights in the darkness.

I find it important that Psalm 36, quoted above, continues thus:

Oh, continue your steadfast love to those who know you, and your righteousness to the upright of heart! Let not the foot of arrogance come upon me, nor the hand of the wicked drive me away.

Psalm 36:10-11

It seems to me that faith or belief in Jesus is not so much an assent to a set of claims or concepts as it is an acknowledgement and acceptance of reality. The reality that God is, that God has created all that is, that He alone is to be worshiped and followed and glorified. That I can’t be enough for myself or anyone else. The moment I forget that reality and look elsewhere for life or satisfaction, I enter dangerous territory. I make myself more than I am, which is arrogance. I make other things more than they are, which is idolatry. And in arrogance and idolatry I set myself up for falling and fear, because anything that isn’t God has an end and will fail.

But worship and adoration of the Lord puts everything else in its place, including me. And then maybe I can see coming to the end of myself as a mercy that lifts my eyes to Him. And maybe I can abide the pain that is endemic to this life because I’m fixed on Christ, remembering His ultimate power over death. And maybe I can even let myself be made beautiful out of this brokenness, a testimony to the world that God inexorably rescues and saves.

¹ Psalm 23

² John 11

³ Mark 6

⁴ an exploration of ebenezer

_{I’m thankful to Pete Scazerro for this message and to Chris Renzema for his song Just as Good. These have guided me by God’s grace.}