I’ve been reflecting a lot lately. Looking back while pondering the way forward.
Although my little family is in a new and good chapter, I can’t help but look back at the road we feel God has led us on and wonder at it. It’s been a strange route, and definitely not one I would have picked for myself. My eyes see something that resembles failure. I look back to 8 years ago, when my husband and I both laid down our careers to follow God on an adventure. It was a direct and very clear call to follow and we went whole-heartedly and expectantly. We went joyfully. But now…now joy is harder to find. The adventure has been wrought with trial. More than I could have ever imagined. The expectations that we once had are gone and although my faith claims it is not so, it appears that we have been left with nothing but failure. Nothing but ashes.
There’s this verse I have displayed in my home…
Trust in the Lord…
It’s simple one, and yet,
I still find that I struggle to trust and desperately want to understand on my own!
Sometimes, when I look around and can’t understand what God is doing, my questioning heart hears whispered lies...
“Hmmm, maybe your shepherd isn’t doing a good job?” “You’ve given enough don’t you think, and you have nothing to show for it. Hold back. Stop following completely.” “You deserve better, so you should take back control.”
Do you sometimes hear those lies too? It’s the age-old ‘tempting fruit’…and some days I just want to reach up and take it. Falsely promised ‘control‘ hangs low on the branch, and always looks like the best option in my life.
It feels good to my wounded, painful places to take back control. Even if it’s false control.
Thankfully, the voice of my good and faithful Savior, {the One who saves me from myself over and over again,} speaks clearly, and cuts through the untruths…
Your perspective of failure is not truth.
I have a plan, and I will work all these things for good.
Trust me beloved.
In your surrender, I will make beauty from ash.
Maybe my ashes are not exactly what they appear to be. Maybe the fruit that I am tempted to pick off the branch isn’t either.
Friends, if we want our King to breathe new life in us, to make our ashes into something beautiful, we cannot hold back. Not anything. We must be brave. We must stop trying to self-preserve. We must love Him with abandon. I realize if you have come through something painful and your heart is still tender, this is so hard. You may not really feel like loving with abandon or trusting at all. Sweet friend, He knows. He sees and He understands. If you’re staring at ash in your life right now, just know that the way through it is Him.
And He is a gentle refuge.
It helps me to remember times when He has taken apparent failures and made something beautiful; times when I have not plucked the fruit of control off the branch but instead chosen surrender…
*In a badly broken relationship, when I allowed forgiveness to truly take root, God brought forth a new and beautiful friendship with that very same person. It was stronger and deeper than the original and more beautiful because of the ashes it came from.
*After enduring some of the shame of financial strife, I was able to look into the eyes of another that were clouded with despair, and remind her that her identity is not based on her bank account or ability to buy nice things. To be the one who reminds her she is not alone in a way that only comes from having walked that road before…Beauty from my ashes.
*Even Jesus on the cross, died in apparent failure only to rise and conquer death. Glorious beauty from ash.
He takes what’s wrong and makes it right. It’s what He does. Who He is. You and I just have to take our eyes off that tempting fruit of self-preservation and control. Our hearts must yield to His will. It’s the only way and anything that promises otherwise is a lie. Without the surrender, all we have is ugly grey dust. We must trust Him with our ashes. He is an excessive, abundant God and never wastes anything. So together let’s trust, lean, and wait on Him. He’s working in you and me, and if you let Him, that ash in your hands, will become something beautiful in His. And I can’t wait to see it!
Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us. Ephesians 3:20
-Kallie