“Those who go off with heavy hearts, come home laughing, with armloads of blessing.” –Psalm 126:6 

“Nights of crying your eyes out, give way to days of laughter.” –Psalm 30:5

For six weeks every year we are invited on a journey – a journey from Ash Wednesday to Easter – the season of Lent. Lent is a symbolic journey that changes our heavy aching hearts to hearts of hope and joy.

So, again, as a community of faith at Fish Lake Lutheran this year, we’d like to make that journey together – offering support, encouragement, and hope along the way. For who among us hasn’t dealt with loss, fear, discouragement, or questions that seem to have no answers? We all hurt in one way or another, or we certainly know someone that is hurting and may be wrestling with understanding it all. 

“Beauty Will Rise – A Triumph of Faith Over Sorrow” will be a Lenten opportunity for healing and hope as we make this journey together. And through it all you will be reminded to trust in God through all times and that through it all – Beauty will Rise! 

Our theme title, “Beauty Will Rise”, is based on a collection of 12 new and profound songs from Christian recording artist, Steven Curtis Chapman. These songs were written in the past eighteen months as Steven and his family walked through their own personal darkness of the loss of his five year old daughter Maria. The songs, in a very moving way, seem to take the listener on a journey from death to life. Part lament, part praise, part grief, part hope, part wrestling, part pondering; these songs speak to all of us who have ever experienced pain, loss, grief, sorrow, and doubt. The album is a desperately hopeful, raw, personal and honest depiction of pain and sorrow that any one of us can relate to on some level.

"Love of God is pure when joy and suffering inspire an equal degree of gratitude."

“God brings beauty and goodness out of what appears so terribly wrong at the moment.”
-Steven Curtis Chapman