Something Beautiful from the Ashes
When the dust settles after the destruction, you look around at what your life is...
Shattered....
and Broken...
You wonder how you ever find happiness again, how anything will ever be made right.
I remember thinking, "God, I don't have to be happy I just need to quit hurting. If I could just breathe and have this crushing weight removed from my chest, then that would be enough."
All seemed lost...
Periodically forests need a cleansing process. Trees are old and diseased, underbrush crowded. Very little light reaches the forest floor. Despite the fact that every year trees produce seeds that fall to the fertile soil below, they rarely grow into trees. The lack of light and space prevents their growth.
Sometimes our lives are like crowded forests.
Dead wood decays. Lack of light hampers our growth.
Perhaps it's an uncontrollable act like a lightning strike,
... or a stray spark from a careless camper that starts it.
With the right conditions, the fire rages through acres. Leaving devastation in it's wake.
What remains are the charred ashes of a once beautiful green paradise.
How can God allow so much destruction
of so much beauty?
If we are patient... we see that God understands far more than we.
Light now reaches the once darkened forest floor.
The heat from the fire causes dormant seeds to sprout.
If we wait and watch...
....soon something begins to emerge from the ashes.
New growth.
Healthy and strong.
Fires replenish the forest.
It Refines it
It Beautifies it
Sometimes those fires start by divine intervention,
sometimes they are the result of our or other people's poor choices.
No matter how they occur they always serve to refine us.
God knows that we need a new place for the light to enter.
He knows that the heat and the fire will cause
dormant abilities within us to emerge.
He knows that we will have new growth.
He knows that we will emerge stronger.
God can make something beautiful from the ashes.
In the beginning I could not see that.
I could not see the new seeds that would sprout.
I didn't notice the light that was streaming down.
But with time I begin take notice of that light,
and as I turned to face the light, I began to see the growth.
As I have turned to prayer, studying and pondering,
I have begun to see the vision of what the forest could be.
No, it won't be the same... But then again neither am I...
Nevertheless it will be beautiful! I have absolute HOPE and FAITH in that.
If you let Him, God will make beauty from the ashes.
No comments:
Post a Comment