Stained glass is highly complicated. You start with a design. For many churches the design is an image of an excerpt from the Bible. The image is created like a puzzle of individual pieces. Glass has to be found to fit the shape, color, and textures needed and be further refined by painting, staining, and etching as needed. The glass is scored, broken, and ground to fit the shape designated. Leading is put around each piece, soldered and stained. Sections of the glass are wired together. Amazing and beautiful, especially when the light flows through and shows the true beauty and relates the story.

People are like that. I went to an Uplift Columbia meeting in which individuals and resources gathered to create a coalition that will provide for the disenfranchised in our county. Churches, health care, and social agencies often under perform because people don’t know what is available or how to access the gifts those resources want to share with those in need. They gathered to share what they have and create a county team of healing services.

Many of the most passionate care providers were people who were themselves broken glass and shattered lives. They had been reclaimed from alcohol, drugs, mental illness, and every sort of distress available in this pain filled world. They found healing and now passionately work to provide it for and to others. They are beautiful stained glass from shattered life pieces reformed through Jesus’s healing hands. Now, the light of God’s love flows through them to beautify their surroundings and tell a story of hope to the world around them. They have become artists in the Lord’s grace, working with others like themselves, so the Lord can create the hope that beautifies our world.

These walking stained glass art pieces are the church on the street for those in need. They are the conduit of God’s light to others. Their brokenness can still be seen in the colors, shapes, leading, and structure, but they are so much more than the pieces. They are the beauty of God’s promise and the power of God’s plan and hope.