The Beauty of Redemption Shines Brighter on a Dark Canvas
In my recent memoir, Thin Places I share in first person present tense my journey of healing, finding God in the thin places, where his presence comes near in my personal darkness. I write starkly about sexual abuse, neglect, an unsafe home, and the ensuing dysfunction this caused in my life. I don’t share to titillate or sensationalize; I give it as it is to highlight one thing: God’s wild redemption is the point of it all. And as it is in all great stories, redemption shines all the brighter on a dark canvas.
Maybe we don’t see true beauty because we’re so busy hiding our dark parts, ashamed. Maybe we’re not exuding the beauty of Jesus because we haven’t let Him into those locked closets of our lives. Maybe we love control more. Maybe we fear the exposure that comes from laying it all out there, highlighting our vulnerabilities and insecurities.
But I’m here to say this: Forsake your fear.
Dare to tell the truth. Dare to share the darkness. Dare to be real about your emptiness, neediness, woundings.
Maybe not to the whole wide world at first, but pour your words at the scarred feet of the One who understands. Why would I say such a thing? Because I’ve seen Jesus beautify the desolate places. Where I used to see my devastation as a negative thing to be pushed against, I now see it as a tragic, but beautiful gift. Because my neediness, coupled with the darkness of sin (of others toward me, me toward others), propelled me into the arms of Jesus. My past, instead of being a detriment, is now a dance floor where He waltzes His grace.
When boys stole my body, my innocence, while I begged the sky for deliverance, I learned others wouldn’t protect me. When my home life swirled around me with drugs and parties and fear, I realized my own vulnerability. When my hero, my father, died, I learned I couldn’t control life or death. When I crashed into a heap of tears meeting Jesus at fifteen, it was this need for a genuine hero-savior that made everything make sense. And since then, He has taken the broken parts of me, the weak parts, and healed me. Psalm 149:4 says, “For the LORD takes pleasure in His people; He will beautify the afflicted ones with salvation.” I was afflicted. He brought salvation. He beautified me.
Please don’t think I’ve manufactured my piety. Or created any beauty. It’s Jesus. Just Jesus. He took the darkness, the pain, the anguish, and brushed a giant stroke of light across me, marking me in the best possible way. That way when others point, they won’t see my adequacy; they’ll see His. I’m thankful today for the dark canvas because it highlights His agonizing and surprising redemption.
That’s the paradoxical beauty of brokenness. That’s why this verse touches me: 1 Corinthians 1:26-29. “For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God.”
It’s my weakness, my despised state in the past that highlights God’s ability to take broken girls like me and create a beautiful life.
Mary DeMuth uses her painful childhood experiences to paint a grace- and hope-filled picture of her life in her most recent release, her memoir entitled Thin Places (2010). Mary is the author of novels such as Daisy Chain (2009) and Watching the Tree Limbs (2007) and has also authored parenting books including Authentic Parenting in a Postmodern Culture and Building the Christian Family You Never Had. She believes in the power of story and her deepest dream is to see stories, hers and others, change lives.
You can see a list of her books and purchase them here.
Follow Mary on twitter here.
Buy Thin Places here.
Read my review of Thin Places here.
Visit her websites: MaryDeMuth.com, the MyFamilySecrets blog, and the WannaBePublished blog















