"You make me new, You are making me new"

Hey!

It's been a while since I have posted so I thought I'd fix that tonight since I have some spare time on my hands and I feel like I need to be doing more than just watching Princess Diaries. Because that's what I do on Monday nights without club...... 

Anyway, to the point. For my friends who aren't believers or are part of the older generation may not have heard of the song "Beautiful Things" by Gungor. Or Gungor at all for that matter! But for my friends who are Young Life leaders this song probably brings you back to a Young Life camp where you saw cardboard testimonies.  

Let's start there, cardboard testimonies are where people take a piece of card board and on the front write little bit about their life pre-Jesus. For an example, when I've done mine in the past, the front has said something along the lines of "alone, depressed, and searching for identity". Now on the back, you write your life after meeting Jesus. So mine has said, "Found, accepted, and loved beyond measure".  If you can picture 20+ kids on stage showing you their cardboard testimonies, you can only imagine how emotional of an experience that can be. Kids are talking about drugs, lying, stealing, sexual abuse, cutting, and even suicide thoughts or attempts; and then they turn their sign around and it talks about how Jesus has redeemed their life. How He has saved them. It's probably one of the most beautiful and real things you'll ever experience. During this, most times the song there are worship songs playing but my personal favorite is Beautiful Things by Gungor. It brings me back to doing my own cardboard testimony and seeing so many leaders and work crew kids bearing their souls at camp.  Here are the lyrics to the song: 

All this pain
I wonder if I’ll ever find my way
I wonder if my life could really change at all

All this earth
Could all that is lost ever be found
Could a garden come up from this ground at all

Chorus:
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us
All around
Hope is springing up from this old ground
Out of chaos life is being found in You

Chorus x2

You make me new, You are making me new  x2

Chorus

So with that being said, I wanted you to have an idea of where my blog title came from. It brings me back to some of the most real, God moments I've ever experienced in my life and that is: sitting at camp on the floor in Big Squawka, The Round Up, or Bonanza watching people share the most beautiful stories of God taking messes and making messages. God is glorified through the hurt, the pain, the brokenness, the abuse, everything. So thankful for the people who have shared their cardboard testimonies and real testimonies with me in their lives. Those stories are what keeps me going when I'm discouraged in Young Life and feeling like nothing is changing. I remember that they are changing through God all the time.

So that's where "Beautiful Things out of Dust" came from. It's meaningful enough for its own post!

Thanks for reading friends.

xoxo

Brea