I love words. I love to carry them around with me and let them roll off my tongue and fill up my vision. Sometimes I create symphonies in my head with words that sing to me with the sweetest melodies. I have some favorites that I keep close and pull out often to admire like a child with a leather pouch of marbles, always carried in a pocket. There are also sacred words to me that I only utter at just the right time that express all that is in my heart. Words are powerful and I constantly check myself to use the ones most often that bring healing, encouragement, wisdom, and hope.

But what about the little words? Those tiny ones we were taught about in English class that are more functional than elegant? Are they important too? Today I was musing over my favorite passage of Scripture, Isaiah 61:1-4. A portion of verse three settled over my spirit that always soothes me like a soft blanket. “To bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes.” As you can see from the title of this whole blog, I am quite enamored with those words. A thought I had never had before entered my mind as I savored those words. I have always quoted that verse incorrectly! Many versions say “beauty for ashes”, but none that I could find say beauty from ashes, which is what I always say and is the title of this blog. They are little words. Does it really matter? I think it does, and in this case, speaks to a deep and fundamental understanding I have experienced more times than I can count in my own spiritual life.

Beauty for ashes is often written in other versions as beauty instead of ashes. That speaks to me of an exchange where one thing is taken away and another is given. My own little word, from, is different. In my mind, my heart, and my life, my experience has always been that life comes from death or through death. In other words, every time a part of my flesh or an attitude or a behavior has died and become a pile of ash, beauty and life have come right up out of the death. Every single time. Instead of an exchange, it is transformation. Something has to die for something to live.

Our entire faith rests upon Jesus Christ dying so that we might live. In His death, resurrection became reality. Forests and other lands laid bare in fire bring forth the potential of new and grander life. The ashes aren’t wasted. God would never allow anything to be wasted and cast aside as useless. He understands the pain and uses every drop to bring us closer to the glory of His image-bearers that we were always meant to be. Death and ash are as much a part of our existence on the earth as is breathing.

In this season of my own life, I have asked the Lord to burn to the ground structures in me that need to die and become a pile of ash. As sure as I am that I am typing on a laptop right now, I know that my King will bring forth great return and abundant life from the death, from the ashes that are heaping up inside my burning heart. It really is quite glorious when I can catch my breath and stand back to watch Him work. The burning down is not, and has not been, anything I would ever want to do again but richer life is rising right out of those ashes and because of them.

My special words of encouragement that I choose for each of you to end this little writing is this……hard times come to all of us on our journey toward Jesus and toward holiness. But the truth of His nature is that He values us beyond anything He has ever created. We are not just a mob of people to Him but each is precious and unique and oh so tenderly loved. When He calls you to a time in the fire, He has not abandoned you. Let the old things that are of no use to you in eternity burn down to the ground and into ash. Let them cool. Life has not ended for you even if it feels like it in the moment. He will bring beauty and life that you have never known before right from death. His plans have ever been consistently for your good and for mine. We are loved with a holy desire for our best that we could never know on our own.

Hold fast. Let the temporary loss you feel burn clean and true. Whatever the circumstance, God is bigger, wiser, and more loving than you can imagine. He is guarding and tending the fire and sees each piece of ash. He walks with you in grief and will celebrate with you in joy and new life. He has a plan. Just beneath loss is great gain. It has always been and always will be the way of truth and life. In God’s economy, beauty truly does come from ashes. Every single time.