Stained Glass Stories
I’ve always loved stained glass. Something about the way light filters through it, fractured and beautiful all at once, has always hit me hard and holds my attention every time.
The church I grew up in, like many others, has these gorgeous, vibrant stained glass windows lining the sanctuary. When I was a kid, sometimes I’d go up to the church with my mom throughout the week as she prepped various supplies for her Sunday school class. While she was busy, I’d sneak into the empty sanctuary and stare in awe at the light as long as I could. There was something both holy and chilling about sitting there in silence, just me and the window light. It felt like worship. It felt like being in the presence of God.
I believe there are lessons to be found in everything we see and experience in this world. And the lesson I’ve come to learn from stained glass is this: Brokenness always leads to beauty in God’s hands.
Think about it. The glass is hardly ever one whole piece. It’s been broken or cut, often roughly. The windows in my childhood church are made of thick, odd pieces, shaped more like rejected bricks than anything. The pieces are stained with various colors and the grime of time. They’re connected by crooked lines of a grainy black material I don’t know the name of. They’re messy. They’re uneven. They’re imperfect.
And yet, the light shining though them is only made more breathtaking by this.
I believe we’re a lot like stained glass windows. Every negative experience, from a single bad day to several bad years, shapes and colors us in ways that make us feel messy and broken. Over time, they can contort us until we don’t even recognize who we used to be. We lose sight of the original, clear, unbroken sheet of glass we might’ve been once.
It’s easy for us to look back and wish we still fit our idea of “whole”. But God knows what we often miss: He uses everything we go through for our good and His glory. The light might shine differently through us now than it did then, but it’s still shining, in many beautiful ways it couldn’t before.
Take Joseph’s story at the end of Genesis. His life was broken when his jealous brothers sold him into slavery in a foreign land. He went to prison for a crime he didn’t commit and was forgotten there for years. But God used every part of Joseph’s story—the good and the bad—to eventually put him in a position to save millions of lives from a devastating famine. He even tells his brothers after they reunite and reconcile later in life that, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” (Genesis 50:20)
I’m still discovering all the ways God is shaping my past hurt and pain for good. So far, He’s used my addictions and unhealthy habits to draw me into deeper conversations with friends—Christian and not—who are dealing with and healing from the same things. He’s also given me a heart for the quiet and shy kids in the ministry I serve in, because I was that kid once and know the joy and validation of being seen when you think you’re not.
He’s building the stained glass window of my life piece by piece, and I can’t wait for the day I’ll be able to see it as one messy, beautiful story. Until I can, I’m going to do my best to recognize the beauty and joy in being broken. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 12:9,
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
Thank You, Lord, for the work You’re doing in and through every one of my days. May Your light shine all the brighter and more beautiful through the broken and stained parts of my life as You use them to shape me and help others. Amen.
