Beauty For Ashes: Overcoming Life’s Fiery Tribulations
Beauty for ashes is God’s perfect solution for our worldly tribulations. Through Jesus Christ, our shattered hearts and souls can heal completely, becoming even more perfect than they were to begin with. A trial in my own life perfectly describes the process of exchanging my pile of ashes for a thing of beauty.
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Soul-Shattering News
One never forgets the emotions one feels when discovering that their relationships are not what they seem. When that moment came for me, I knew my life would never be the same. I honestly thought it would be better.
After hearing such soul-shattering news, the walls around me seemed to crumble. Surprisingly, I allowed only a single, solitary tear to roll down my cheek. Then, with a voice soft and sure, I said, “We can get through this together, and be stronger for having gone through it.”
In the seemingly slow-motion moments that followed, I envisioned this person and I sharing our soon-to-be success story in front of large groups of people. Our story would inspire others in the midst of their relationship challenges, and fill them with hope.
Moving Forward
Sadly, some stories don’t end the way we wish they would, for reasons we may never fully understand. Nevertheless, life has a way of carrying on and, with it, intermingled with the good times, come a sea of challenges.
During the tumultuous years that followed, I struggled to know how to navigate the stormy waters that surrounded my family. No one seemed to have the anwers I sought, so I prayed and read books. I attended seminars and visited with experts. But most importantly, I communicated with my children.
Children Have Needs
We spoke regularly of grief and sadness, loss and despair, shame and isolation, anger and fear. But not without also speaking of hope and faith, peace and forgiveness, light and love, courage and strength. Most importantly, we spoke of a loving Heavenly Father and Savior who would always be there for them in their time of need.
And in the moments when we couldn’t speak, we simply held each other and cried.
Children are not as resilient as others often say they are. Children need help processing their emotions. They need to know that they’re not alone. They need trusted individuals they can talk to who can offer continuous love, encouragement, and support.
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Great Hardship
Recently, my children and I engaged in yet another informal and spontaneous session. We worked through some painful emotions that were being felt by all.
We each spent time sharing; we each spent time listening.
The end of our conversation was telling. The consensus was that life is often hard. That there are certain factors that are out of our control. But that personal growth, joy, and blessings can result from enduring great hardship.
Beauty For Ashes
These conversations with my children over the years, more than anything else, perfectly exemplify my sincere and oft-repeated phrase, “We can get through this together, and be stronger for having gone through it.”
Thus fulfilling the scriptural promise of “beauty for ashes” (Isaiah 61:3).
Shop Beauty For Ashes
Poetry: Joy Cometh In The Morning
Bound in wretched desperation,
Stone heart sealed against more pain,
Fervant grasps for understanding,
As endless heartache falls like rain.
Salty droplets linger,
Filling the chill air,
Seeping deeply into crevices,
Drenching the ground,
But quenching no thirst,
Like a lost and leaky faucet,
In a state of disrepair.
With broken seal, and no replacement,
A steady drip of fevered pain,
Patches seek to stem the tide,
But all these efforts are in vain.
Tears fall into hidden puddles
Wet, muddy, cold
As night takes hold.
Then–lo!–at sunrise,
A ray of light
At the sight
Of the Savior’s reflection,
Bursting forth with clarity,
Shining brilliantly,
Illuminating the gathered tears with
A remembrance
That hope is found in living water.
And I begin to drink.
~ C. Mason
—–
“For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.” ~ Revelation 7:17
Poetry: Light and Gold: Kintsugi Japanese Art
A crack appears within me,
Separating me from truths I thought I knew,
Life has a way of breaking things,
But God can make them new.
“Am I broken?” I ask, and God smiles,
“No”, He replies, with a voice both warm and bold.
I look in the mirror at my brokenness
To find the crack now filled with light and gold.
For those who feel like you’re broken,
To the very depths of your core—Trust God!
For He can rebuild what is broken,
He knows how to restore.
~ C. Mason
Quotes
Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths.’ It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult—once we truly understand and accept it—then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters. Most do not fully see this truth that life is difficult. Instead they moan more or less incessantly, noisily or subtly, about the enormity of their problems, their burdens, and their difficulties as if life were generally easy, as if life should be easy. They voice their belief, noisily or subtly, that their difficulties represent a unique kind of affliction that should not be and that has somehow been especially visited upon them, or else upon their families, their tribe, their class, their nation, their race or even their species, and not upon others. I know about this moaning because I have done my share.
M. Scott Peck
In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer. — Albert Camus
He will “give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness” Isaiah 61:3
