Finding Beauty in the Broken

The word beauty is usually used to describe sunsets, a newborn baby, majestic mountains, flowers that you can smell from ten feet away, your significant other, or a night spent in laughter with friends. You know, beautiful things. But, what if beauty were to also describe the mud we have to trudge through after a month of constant rain, the mosquitos that have left our legs looking like we have chicken pox, the moment we get our hearts broken for the first time, or a life that has been filled with nothing but constant struggle? When we can see beauty as both of these things simultaneously is when our idea of beauty becomes God’s idea of beauty.


“How do you tell people that they are walking around shining like the sun!” Thomas Merton, a 20th century monk, penned those words. Through spending time in deep prayer, his view of the world and the broken, sinful people in it changed from disgust to awe. He claimed that he could not see people around him without first seeing their beauty and seeing God’s glory through them. I first heard this story in my Church in the 21st Century course taught by Father O’Brien. Throughout the beginning of the semester we have been discussing the idea that Catholics call a sacramental imagination, which means being able to see God’s beauty and grace in ordinary, every day things and circumstances. By cultivating this imagination, a simple sunset can turn into a supernatural revelation or a short conversation with the person you sit next to in class can be seen with an eternal purpose. So often, though, I speed through my day completely caught up in what I need to do next that I feel like I can’t even take a minute to stop and breathe, let alone admire a sunset or care about the lives of people in my path. If I want to follow Christ, though, my days need to slow down, because if I’m not looking for the beauty in life, I will not see it. Those people walking around every day that Merton said were “shining like the sun” will only be people who annoy me, bother me, or even anger me. If I can’t even see the beauty in things that are easy to find beauty in, like nature and loving relationships, then how can beauty be found in human brokenness and struggle?


In his message on suffering last week, Jon also touched on this idea that God brings beauty out of even the most painful or hopeless situations. The whole time I couldn’t stop thinking about the song by Laura Story called “Blessings.” If you haven’t heard it, seriously, stop reading this post and listen! She sings about how we often pray for blessings and comfort, yet through suffering and pain is when God’s mercy and beauty can be seen fully. I was talking to Antonio, my boyfriend, the other day about all the struggles he has had to face in his life and one thing he said stuck out to me, because it was as if God was saying it to me. After talking about how lonely he always felt because of the pain in his past, he said that being removed from the suffering and pain has shown him that God has protected, guided, and been there for him all along. Sometimes it takes hurt and pain in our lives to fully recognize and appreciate the amazing healing power of God. That doesn’t make the pain any less real, but a change of perspective can take what seems like purposeless hurt and make it life changing. It just struck me that I so often pray for pain to be taken away from me, but, like in Antonio’s case, pain is what often causes a change in our hearts and perspectives. The pain Antonio faced in his childhood and young adult years was horrendous, but has most clearly shown him the character of God and has shaped him into the man he is today. There is the beauty. When I can look at a human story that may be so broken and destructive, but still see God’s resurrecting power, I have found the beauty. In the end, beauty is not about us, it is about what God does in us and through us.