The Ugly Beautiful

The ugly made beautiful.
The ugly beautiful.

Finding the beautiful in the pain, sadness, confusion.  Finding the beautiful in the valleys.
It's sometimes really difficult.  Everything can look so dark. So full of hurt. So full of questioning without answers.
But I have begun to learn that if you look hard enough, the ugly can become beautiful.
The ugly can be beautiful.  Sometimes you have to really look.
But the beautiful is there. 

The fire will come and it will burn.  It will hurt and leave ugly black behind it.
It will be devastating.  It is devastating.
It is hard to understand why fire must come. Change the course of life.
But it still comes.  Life is changed.
Life is changed but not destroyed.

And you know, sometimes the fire is needed.  For the pain and black to come.
Because somehow in the black, the light shines brighter.
The blessings, the gifts, the beautiful shines true because of the ugly.

A fire blazed out of control not too far from here about a month ago.
It burned, destroyed, wrecked everything in its path.
It caused pain, fear, death.
But because of it, the life shines brighter.
The life saved, rescued.  The life that survived.
And the life that now blooms.  And blooms because of the fire.

The valley is barren and dark. But because of the fire, the yucca plants bloom.  
They bloom in glory.  They are beautiful and brilliant.

They say that the yucca plant flowers even more after the fire.
After the burning pain, it blooms even more.
And the more it blooms, the more impact it has.
More seeds are spread and more plants will one day grow bright and beautiful.


And you know what is else?
The yucca is also known as Our Lord's Candle.
The light that shines bright into the darkness.
The light that shines truth, love, and beauty into this world.

Somehow, beauty shines through the ashes.  A brilliant reminder of hope.
That out of the pain, out of what seems like death, life and life to the full can come.

And that is what I am learning.  Learning to find the beauty in the ugly.
The beauty despite the ugly. The ugly beautiful.

And because of that, I hope. I can hope.
I can keep going.  For He promises to make beautiful things out of us.
Out of dark. Out of pain. Out of the ugly.
Beauty comes.

It comes brighter than before. Even though it truly has been there all along.
The ugly beautiful.