“I like my ashes!”
Those are the words I heard as I awoke one morning last week.
It was cold, way too cold, 14 degrees to be exact – with even lower temperatures on the way. And this Mississippi girl was not equipped for those kinds of numbers.
Yep, I was mad at the world for its frigid temperatures and spitting snow, and I firmly resented the prospect of getting out of my warm, toasty bed to head into work.
So, I rolled over and spoke my resentful thoughts aloud, “It’s too cold ….”
As my unfinished thought dangled in the frosty air of morning, that’s when I heard that still, small Voice finish my sentence, “It’s too cold … I like my ashes.”
Wait. What did that mean?
Instead of an answer, those words resounded surely and resolutely: “I like my ashes.”
Talk about jump-starting an engine! I immediately sat straight up in my bed, ready to argue. But I knew any argument I presented would be futile, because, as always – He was right.
Though it seemed rather harsh to declare so flatly that I like my ashes, I must confess that I was resentful of the cold, the snow – and life in general.
But I continued my attempts to justify my mournful heart: Life is not fair!
It is not fair that my husband and I raised two boys to honor and serve God, and yet, one of them is gone to heaven and the other is left here to struggle with that loss and other losses of his own.
It’s not fair that Chris’s little family must go on without him, living, working, and attending church and school in the very same spaces previously filled with his love and laughter.
Nor is it fair that five of our sons’ six grandparents and step-grandparents are gone. It’s certainly not fair that three of those grandparents died within a five-week period, and another died only months later at the height of Chris’s battle with leukemia.
And it’s certainly not fair that my husband and I have no living aunts or uncles, no family member from the previous generation with more life experience to undergird us or guide us through this time of loss.
No! Absolutely nothing about these facts of life seemed fair to me.
So, yes, on that cold morning of stark reality, I somewhat reluctantly confessed my anger and resentment to God – “I guess I do like my ashes. I kind of like my sackcloth too.”
My caustic confession was just the tip of the iceberg. (And yes, that little bit of puny sarcasm was intended.) It took several days to get to the heart of my sinful resentment.
In fact, I spent that cold day and every day since then studying “ashes” in the Bible, and in all honesty, I am not proud or thrilled with what I discovered in my studies.
In biblical times, ashes were only meant to be a temporary sign of mourning, a way to remind people that, yes, God made man from ashes and dust, and our earthly bodies die and return to that state. Those ashes wordlessly said we came from ashes, and to ashes we will return.
Literally and symbolically, ashes are an outward sign of that inevitable death, a way to mourn and grieve.
But as children of the living God, we are much more than ashes. We are no longer bound by death. Instead, we are joint heirs with Jesus. As such, we will inherit an eternity of life we did not and could not earn in our earthly, dust-made bodies of sin. Jesus saved us from that sin, and in the miraculous process, He also saved us from death, hell, and the grave. Hallelujah!
But the bad news is … if we get too comfortable with our ashes, then, we will miss the whole purpose of our human, dust-trodden journey here. And that divine purpose is to serve and honor our Maker by carrying His love to others – with these weak and weary, ash-laden vessels called human bodies.
Sometimes, that means that we mere mortals must go to places we do not want to go and endure things we do not understand or even like – for His purposes and plans.
No, I do not relish the thought of life without our son Chris. Some days, I cannot even bear the thought. But those are the days He bears me up in His nail-scarred hands and reminds me by His loving but bluntly truthful Spirit that He loves me too much to let me wallow in my familiar and beloved ashes of grief.
And yes, He was right. I like my ashes – I probably always will to some degree. (Another intended pun.) But I do not like my ashes or my sackcloth nearly as much as I love my Savior.
So, I only had one choice on that cold, cold morning of mourning. I had to get up, wash those ashes of mourning off my face, and head out in those frigid North Pole temps.
With His joy as my strength, it’s the same choice I have to make every day of this dusty journey called life, no matter how cold it is or how much I long to hold my boy again.
The truth is, God already knew my pain before I voiced it the other morning. And by His grace, He already had an exchange in mind, if I was simply willing to let go of my ashes.
It was an unbelievable exchange brokered long ago by His Son on the cross of Golgotha.
Through Jesus, God offers me beauty for those ashes. And get this! For the glory of His Son, God also promises to make something beautiful from my brokenness.
So, forget the ashes! Bring on the beauty!
“To grant those who mourn in Zion, giving them a garland instead of ashes,
The oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting. So they will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified”(Isaiah 61:3).
