Transforming Dust into Diamonds

“You make beautiful things. You make beautiful things out of the dust.
You make beautiful things. You make beautiful things out of us.”

We’ve sung these words in Praise and Worship numerous times this semester, and I think they resonate perfectly with Lewis’ belief of God’s redemptive work in every aspect of our lives – especially in God's redemptive work in transforming the parts of us that are ugly. God doesn’t just take away our selfishness. He transforms the ugliness of it into something beautiful – selflessness. He doesn’t just help us overcome our jealous, warped love for others. He transforms it into a beautiful love – like the kind he has for us.

While we were singing the words of this song one night at P&W, a thought popped into my mind about a website I had recently seen called Lifegem.com. It’s a website through which you can get the ashes of your loved one made into a diamond. No joke. Very bizarre, but it led me to think of God’s redemptive work in our lives as the transformation of ashes into diamonds. When we die to things of our selfish nature, there’s really not a whole lot left of us. We’re made of dust, and to dust we will return. However, God can make beautiful things out of us, out of our dust. After all, that’s where diamonds come from – the compression of carbon particles under intense pressure over long periods of time. God takes our ashes, the ugliness of our sinful nature, and compresses them to form something new and beautiful!

This thought is similar to the one Lewis proposes in the Great Divorce, when the Ghost with the lizard on his shoulder finally allows the Angel to kill the lizard. Not only is the Ghost transformed into a new and brighter being, but his lizard is also transformed into a great stallion. I think Lewis’ imagery in this scene is fantastic! He shows how God can take the ugly burdens that are riding down upon and controlling us and can transform them into something glorious that we can ride upon.

Just as the Ghost was transformed into a new, sturdy being like the bright figures, I think Lewis would say that God can transform the ugly dust of our lives into something new too, into something hard, indestructible and beautiful – like a diamond.