Making Beautiful from Ugly

I once heard Beth Moore speak about how God does not want to just save us from Hell, but He wants to redeem us. He wants to turn all that is ugly about us, our past failures, our sins, and turn it all in to something beautiful. Something that can bring Glory to Him. Beth said that we often settle for good enough, when beautiful is just around the corner. This line has stuck in my head for the last few years since I went through that Bible study. I am always looking for ways to allow God to take my ugly and turn it into something beautiful and I am always trying to teach the Grace Gardens ladies the same thing. I am trying to teach them to let God into every part of their life and their past so that He can redeem them and their past.Just a few days ago, I found out that one of my Grace Gardens ladies is pregnant. It seems she got pregnant when we sent her home to visit her family at Christmas time. When I found out, I wanted to cry. I was angry, sad, and frustrated with her. But as I went home and prayed, I felt like God showed me some pretty incredible truth. The truth is that this girl and some village man committed a sin and through that ugly sin, a child was created. So, out of something ugly came something beautiful! Almost every child at Grace Gardens and both of my kids we are adopting are born out of sin, yet each is such a beautiful blessing from God.God is so good that in the midst of our sin, He creates beauty! The more I thought about this, the more I realized that His revelation of this sin is His love for them. Even the act of revealing the sin of these two is Him crying out to them to get right with Him! He is revealing their sin through a pregnancy so they can get right with him and he is revealing His love for redemption by creating life and showing them that He wants to give them life; eternal life!God is good, and His grace is unfathomable! While we often look at a child out of wedlock as a curse or a punishment, perhaps God has been using children born out of wedlock to send His message of redemption to the world. I have always thought babies were too cute to be punishment. How many women have killed that message while it is still in their womb and still God cries out to them that He wants to forgive them, He wants to redeem them, if only they will turn to Him and let Him!""Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me." Revelation 3:20