Beauty from Ashes - A Continual Process

A Messy Tale... Genesis 50:20 “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” (What Joseph told his brothers who sold him...) May 2013 Yeah, so that was the title page of my "book" back in 2013.  After years of journaling,  I looked back and thought, "I think this could be a book."  But I see now, God was having me journal so that in the future, (NOW March 2019), I  could literally look back and see His foot prints, or stones of remembrance in my life... So in the "book," I had cut and pasted from July 2011, November 2012, and January 2012, June 2010, November 2006, July 2011, January 2013, and April 2010 to be in the "sections 15-19" below on meditations and peace. Because I just needed to re-read and absorb, I'm leaving them unedited, just as I found them on pages 103-114 of my "book."  My first post in this blog is titled"Th...

Most days I ask God to place people in my path, Divine appointments.  I'm pretty sure that more often than not, I miss those Divine appointments by steeping in my own thoughts.  Do not over-steep the tea or it will become bitter. I get tired of my own thoughts!  That is why I find so much refreshment in the book of Psalms and Proverbs.  The verses relate to where my thoughts often start, but they take me to the place I want them to land...in the hands of Jesus.   2 Corinthians 10:5 even warns us to keep our thoughts in check, "... take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."  As God's children, we fight our battles with His Divine power, as talked about in the verses leading up to verse 5.  So why do I often wield my own sword?! During my deepest grief I had a counselor who wisely suggested that I read Psalm 119 because it is so repetitive with truth - 176 verses!  It would prove to help me jump off the "merr...

Things often seem dark in January through March - The middle!  The fall crisp colors are gone, and there is typically no pretty snow here in Kentucky.  Spring feels so far away!  Honestly I'm not a fan!  It can make all that's already hard seem even more so.   If you're fighting your way through I'm just sayin', yeah me too.  We all have stories, and we all know people with hard stories, and we all know the news.  But I won't stop there, not today. Yeah. Life. Hurts. But! Recently,  my spirit has been reminded in the most gentle ways, that God, the Creator of the Universe humbled himself as a man ( Philippians 2).  He suffered to the point of death, so that even in our suffering, we can have LIFE!  So He too says, yeah me too!  "He sees, He knows, He is making a way." He did this so you and I would know there will be an end to suffering. Jesus is the reason we can fight FROM VICTORY not FOR VICTORY!  Easter...

I write my heart.  I write of pain and beauty.  My Blog title, Beauty from Ashes, is not about my beauty at all!  It is taken from Isaiah 61 where the Isaiah was telling of a God-man to come.  Jesus.   Jesus was going to come,  now Jesus has come, and the full healing of Jesus is to come.  But God wanted Isaiah to give us hope... The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, ... to proclaim good news to the poor. ... to comfort all who mourn, 3 and provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor. Today at church we read Psalm 130.  David writes of pain, mercy, and waiting, and hope. A year and 5 months after my brother's death, I have grown and healed, and at the same ti...

Today I pray a glimmer of God's light will shine through my brokenness, the many cracks held together only by the Spirit of God. He is my glue. I'm learning that there's always a new filter through which we see life. Each painful experience, changes the way we filter past pain as well. We see everything differently.  With the unimaginable, there can come unimaginable strength as well. At some point we get to the place where this filter, though unwanted and always with us, allows us to see a new kind of beauty. A beauty from pain.  There is no time table for this... On my drive home last night I saw the sun setting on the horizon of a beautiful Kentucky farm.  I snapped the picture through my dirty car window.  All these thoughts came crashing in.  The window changed the purest beauty of the sun setting, but the sun was in the picture,  and its beauty was still there. A new strength slowly sprouts from beneath the cement, it's tender and nee...