Years ago, I had a dream…In the dream a friend who had experienced devastating loss was walking up to her house after a fire.  You could see the charred beams, broken glass, and the remains of her children’s burned toys on the ground.  It looked and felt like she had lost everything.  As she wandered through the the remains of her life with tears running down her face, she saw something shiny on the ground.  As she reached down to pick it up out of the rubble, she discovered jewels in the ashes….”

I believe He does give “beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness…” Isaiah 61:3.  That doesn’t mean the process isn’t bloody painful at times for the ones doing the mourning!

Jewels in the Ashes

The fire has come, its damage done.
She wonders what remains.
All her heart perceives right now
Are brokenness and pain.

Tears of grief-the disbelief!
Her life was built on sand.
All she’d clung so tightly to
Was slipping through her hands….

Sorting through (so hard to do)
But no more can she run.
It’s time to risk the shame and disgrace
To let the healing come.

As she sifted through the ash
And rubble of her life
Hidden in the blackness
She saw a shining light.
Buried in the wreckage-
In the pain she has to face
Are shimmering jewels
Rare precious stones-
Examples of His grace.

Jewels in the ashes
Diamonds from the coal….
The pressure has a purpose
Even though it crushes so.
Birth comes after labor,
New life from a dying seed.
He bears our pain beside us
And longs to set us free.