A few years ago, I was in prayer meeting at my church preparing to pray for the unsaved, the unloved, and the hurting. That one Wednesday night, I was one who was in deep pain.
As the prayer requests were being shared, I could not get my mind off myself due to the helplessness and despair I felt. Yes, I know, it seems I could muster the self control to not be focused on myself with so many other people who needed prayer, but honestly, I was beyond hurting.
I was broken. I started crying, but again, that was nothing too unusual in prayer meeting. Many were crying over the prayer requests, so no one thought anything of my sniffling. As the prayer meeting continued, I was reminded of so many mistakes and things that had gone wrong in my life.
Nothing was going well, and I mean nothing: relationships, family, home, vehicle, work. I was so close to despondent.
Quietly and with everything I had, I cried out to God in my heart to help me see what He was doing. I cried out to God to help me find a better job. I cried out to God to heal the relationships that were destroyed. I cried out to God to make sense of my life. I cried out to God. I cried out. I cried.
I kept thinking of the verse in Psalms 27 about believing I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living, but it caused me to ask what goodness could there be ever again.
At the end of prayer meeting, I got up, tried to dry my tears, and sat down in my chair. That is when God answered me. I looked at the stained glass window at the back of the sanctuary, and I understood that God knew what He was doing.
You see, that amazing stained glass window wasn’t amazing at all. The church only back lights the window on Sunday mornings and evenings. Other than that, it is a dark mass against a light colored wall. And it is ugly, so very ugly. It has no true shape or form other than a long dark rectangle that is the focus of that wall.
But (and this is a huge but) when the window is back lit, the picture of Jesus as the Great Shepherd is so beautiful. All those pieces of glass in their perfect shape, perfect color, and perfect place make an amazing picture. I so love that Jesus is carrying one the precious lambs. That lamb was me that night. I saw that the pieces of glass with the most apparent flaws were the ones that glimmered the most. And I realized that my life is a stained-glass window.
If anyone were to look on it from the outside, they would not see much beauty. But God (my favorite two-word phrase) shines His light through my life, and He gets so much glory from the broken pieces He has pieced together to form an amazing picture.
I don’t know God’s plan for my life. I can’t see the picture that He is creating. I can’t see how the pieces fit or how the colors make any sense, but I trust the Master to create the picture that He can use. And I trust Him to take all those broken pieces and make them brilliant with His light.
To Finish Well 