Beauty For Ashes

Right now most of us are sitting at home just wondering what happens next. Our world has been hit with this covid-19 and took everything that we knew and basically made us question almost everything. There are no easy answers. No easy fixes. Jobs have been lost. Financial distress. Lives have been lost. This is a monster that we can’t see. We are stuck in our homes, away from our churches, friends, schools and normalcy. We have this new phrase “social distancing” that until now, no one ever really talked about. This social distancing has caused sorrow, depression, anxiety and fear.

Its also made us look at life differently. Our priorities have been made clear. Its been a learning experience for each and every person. Above all it has shown us how in the blink of an eye, EVERYTHING can change.

As I have been home with my children, like many I have been working on house projects that haven’t gotten done. One thing I had been trying to accomplish was weeding my flower garden outside. When my daffodils started to bloom, and before Brianna picked them all, I stood and stared at my little piece of a flower garden and something hit me. I have lived in our home since 2013 and I was never able to get any of the perennials to come back from year to year. Every spring I would spend a bunch of money on flowers and every year they would die off and nothing would come back the next year. The following year I would do the same and the cycle would repeat itself.

In the spring of 2018, I was very pregnant with Deshawn and it was time for me to presumably waste money again and plant flowers that would die. I sat on a blanket and planted my flowers while Pharon would do the walking back and forth. Fast forward to Spring 2019…its the first spring without Pharon. Its the first spring since I went through the hardest time of my life. I am still deep in mourning.

Still deep in my ashes

My flowers came back. Not only did they come back but I had to thin them out. My flower garden that had not been fruitful ever had an abundance of flowers. An abundance of beauty. It became a reminder that God can and will bring a bounty of fruit, joy and beauty during and after a time of pain. He brings us up out of the ashes of mourning and pain to more greatness than we can ever imagine. I had just experienced pain that I could still not work thru, I mourned till it physically hurt and I could not see two days ahead of me. A simple flower garden was my reminder.

So as we navigate through these uncharted waters, remember that “He gives beauty for ashes” Isaiah 61:3. Back in Biblical times people would rub ashes on themselves during times of mourning. We are covered in ashes right now during this pandemic. We are mourning the loss of jobs, finances, schooling, social interaction and most importantly life. I think its safe to say that most of us mourn with the thousands of families around the world who have lost loved ones. We are mourning our routines, our stability and our sense of security. The Lord has not forgotten or forsaken us. He will bring beauty out of this just like he brought beauty out of me losing Pharon. Just like the world has been turned upside down from covid-19, my life was turned upside down on December 18, 2018. God brought me back a reminder though. My beautiful little flower garden. A reminder that even when we think that its impossible for anything good to come from something…….He can and will make it happen.

Be safe my friends. We will get thru this time of ash covered life.