Beauty From Ashes

It was the kind of weather that freezes your nose hairs. The wind hit my face as I stepped onto the icy porch. Steadying my pregnant self, I saw what almost tripped me as three-year-old Justin tugged on my shirt. “Mommy, what is it?” Ice crunched and scraped under the box as we shimmied it into our apartment.

Both of us wide-eyed and smiling, we dropped to the floor and lifted out each item: a roasting chicken, corn bread and gravy mixes, potatoes, and canned corn. Giggling, Justin grabbed a bag of ribbon candy. The kind I used to find, sticky and covered in red fuzz, at the bottom of my Christmas stocking, next to the orange.

The bag crinkled between us as I hugged him and cried. The candy wasn’t an essential for Christmas dinner. It was an added treat for my little boy.

Jeff was fresh out of the Army and not at his job long enough to have insurance for our third baby’s birth. Money was tight but we lived within our means. Our finances weren’t the source of my struggle.

After our baby girl’s death two years earlier, I learned grief is often subtle. You catch yourself staring into the kitchen cabinet for five minutes, deciding corn or green beans for supper. As a young mom, I didn’t know how to express it or that it was vital to do so. Besides, if I tried, could anyone really understand?

Grief is often a lonely walk. We want others to see our pain and fix it. But, they can’t.

From ages fourteen to twenty-six, my pain relief was weekend alcohol binges. Anything we use to shove grief under the surface—food, anger, shopping—only makes it fester and poison everything. Our words, our actions, our family. It tells us to remain a victim. It hides our strengths, our purpose, and robs us of joy and peace. It becomes our identity.

That’s where I was that winter morning when I almost tumbled over the box. I needed someone to see my struggle. That day, I believe Someone did.

The box on my porch told me I wasn’t alone. I started to think maybe my anger toward God was misplaced. Maybe He wasn’t mean and distant. Maybe I didn’t have to stay stuck in my pain.

It took five more years, but that stranger’s generosity was a stepping stone to find the One who sees, understands, and soothes my grief. He fills the places in my heart that no one or nothing else can.

What a wonderful God we have—he is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the source of every mercy, and the one who so wonderfully comforts and strengthens us in our hardships and trials. And why does he do this? So that when others are troubled, needing our sympathy and encouragement, we can pass on to them this same help and comfort God has given us.” 2 Cor 1:3-4.

We don’t have to let grief define us or defeat us. It’s simply a part of our journey that empowers us to live out our faith and our life to its fullest. When we choose God’s comfort, we’ll see Him make beauty from ashes. Be amazed, my friends.

 

 

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