Article I Wrote Last Week: Beauty For Your Ashes

I find that God mostly speaks to me through devotionals, scripture, and the words of others, so when I hear the same message over and over in a short period of time, I sit up and take notice because I believe God is saying to me, "Be still, and know that I am God!" Be still and LISTEN!
Over a week ago on a Thursday, a source that I don't even recall (brain fog), brought to my attention the verse in Isaiah that speaks about "beauty for your ashes". I remember thinking, "I wonder what that verse really means?"
The next day, Friday, I was going through my early morning remote travel to the weather channel and came across Joyce Meyer and heard her say, "2+2 does not always equal 4"....this got my attention because I had just written a post on that very thing. She then went on to talk about God giving us "beauty for our ashes"! In general she said she felt this verse meant that God turns our trials in life into something good. That He brings beauty into the ashes in our lives. I mulled this over and then forgot about it and went on with my day.
Saturday am I went to a blog I enjoy called, Michelle's Morsels Beelieve. She has music playing there and while reading what songs I could choose from there was one titled, Beauty From Ashes!!! My "God alert" button came on and and I realized I needed to pay attention to these words and take time to be open to what God was bringing to my attention. I found and read Isaiah 61:3 in 3 different Bible versions that day. After contemplating and praying over what this meant for me/us, I remember telling Joel that I felt like we had been sitting in our ashes, lamenting the past 2 years of struggle, and that we needed to stop focusing on our negative circumstances and focus more on the beauty that has come from these ashes. The visual I had for myself was that I was sitting in the ashes and rubbing them on my body as I grieved the losses that have occurred ~ some that we have shared and others we have not. It was time to accept the changes, let go of the losses, and move foward. This would help us stop grieving what was and feel better about what is.
Sunday morning I woke up and made my usual call to Joel, who was on the road to his congregation 52 miles east of where we live. Then I settled in among my pillows to watch Joel Osteen on TV. He spoke on ~ you guessed it!!!~ Beauty for your ashes! He gave me another insight into these 4 powerful words... He mentioned that we make plans and dreams for our lives and sometimes these plans/dreams die before fruition. They "die" and end up buried and turning to ashes, BUT we don't always get past this grieving burial stage. We don't move forward into the "Something new" stage. We need to stop thinking " This is happening to me" and start believing "This is happening for me". In other words, God will make something good come from the death and burial of hopes,dreams, and losses we experience. Finally God was getting His message through to me :).
God wants Joel and I to move past our difficulties of the past two years ~ He wants us to stop rubbing ourselves with the ashes of our grief and losses. They brought us to our knees in every aspect of our life ~ not only because we felt confused, beaten up, and exhausted from our efforts, but because our only resource was on bended knee where our faith sustained us and carried us. God loves us so much he does not want us to be stuck, He wants us to experience His goodness and by accepting the "something new" that God has planned, we can do that. We aren't sure what that something new is, but we do know we can trust God's plan as being what is best for us. God will bring beauty from our ashes ~ When we look back over the past two years and focus on the blessings we can see He already has. Putting our faith into action with acceptance for what is, a focus on the blessings in our lives, and hope for our future WILL bring beauty for our ashes. For all of us it is a process, but sometimes when life throws us so many curves, we can get stuck in this process. May each of you find your own beauty in your ashes this day.