Uncovering the Ashes

Some things aren’t pleasant or easy to write about. Some things make you afraid to hit the publish button. Some things you know you have to get out. So today I’m wading into deeper waters…

I’ve been doing the Ruth Gospel of Grace bible study from Life Lived Beautifully.

This study has hit home with me. It has allowed me to start dusting off the ashes from the past to see glints of goodness and grace buried within.

This time last year I was not happy. I was overly stressed from balancing school and work and sorority life. I was desperately lost and confused and in a state of despair about a situation. I was exhausted mentally and emotionally. I had become cold hearted and careless. All I wanted was for the heaviness to leave me and the darkness to leave my mind. I needed to escape, but I didn’t know how. I felt like I was in a thick, suffocating fog. It was a fog that had been slowly building up for almost a year.

I was lost and wandering in the wilderness as some would say. I would spend my quiet time in the morning searching scripture and praying for direction from God. Would I ever get rid of these chains I felt like I was wearing?

I would look in the mirror and wonder if this is how I was always going to feel. If this was something I would never escape.

I wanted to experience freedom right then. I wanted everything to be fixed now. But God had a different idea in mind. I had to wait until it was right in his time. Now I’m beginning to see the good from that long period of fog.

Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end. Ecclesiastes 3:11

Today I’m in a completely different place than I used to be. My life is filled with joy, happiness, and gratitude.

I’m just now beginning to see that God can use those “ashes” from my life to bring beauty.  I’ve known I’ve been happy, but I wasn’t able to look back on the past without almost being mad about where I had been.

Now when I reflect back I can see how God fulfilled his words to me that he would deliver me and he did.

I waited patiently for the Lord to help me, and he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the pit of despair, out of the mud and the mire. He set my feet on solid ground and steadied me as I walked along. He has given me a new song to sing, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see what he has done and be amazed. They will put their trust in the Lord. Psalm 40:1-3

When you’re in a place like that you don’t know at the time what good it will bring out of your life. The only thing you can focus on is how to get yourself out.

Maybe today you know exactly what I’m talking about. Maybe this is you right now. Or maybe you cannot relate to this at all. Regardless of any of that I just want to give you hope that what you’re experiencing now or what you’ve experienced in the past can be used for good. You will see the light again.