A good friend of mine, John Schilling, shared with me an essay he wrote where he compared the Atonement of Christ to a stained-glass window.

A master craftsperson that creates stained glass windows could start with a big pile of broken glass shards. To the untrained eye, that pile would look like a big mess. But the craftsperson could take that “mess” and create a beautiful mosaic of color and light. Similarly, our lives can feel like a broken mess, or as John wrote, “Lord, I am broken in so many pieces.” But Christ, the expert craftsmen of our lives, can make sense of that mess. He can pick up the broken pieces of our lives, clean them, color them, and seal them together to create a beautiful tapestry through which His light can shine. This is creating “beauty from ashes” (Isaiah 61:3).

When I heard John’s essay, I had to create a song. Wendy Platt created the lyrics from John’s essay.