Beauty Instead of Ashes



 '...to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.' ~ Isaiah 61:3

This past weekend, my dad and I spent a day traveling through Yellowstone. I love the park, it is full to the hilt of God's creation and no matter where you are in the park, you're completely surrounded by His handiwork. When my dad and I got home, he was looking at the pictures I had taken with my digital camera. When he came to the picture above, he asked, "What were you taking a picture of here?" I explained to him how much I love to see places in the park that were once devastated by fire, but now green grass and beautiful wildflowers and coming up from the very place that was burned. It reminded me of this verse in the Bible, where God promises to  bring beauty from the painful, broken, and devastating experiences in our lives.

It seems God has been really emphasizing this promise to me lately, especially with this verse. I wrote recently about wanting to use the abuse in my past to help others and some ideas I've had of ways to do that. One was was to start an on-line support group for abuse survivors. I started an on-line support group in the past, one that lasted a good 6 or 7 years before I felt it had served its purpose. There's just something so wonderful about an on-line support group when it comes to deal with abuse issues, I think because of the anonymity the group holds for each person. It's so much easier to open up to people you can't see, who you don't have to look in the eye, when it comes to dealing with some of the more painful and shameful issue related to healing. Some of my closest friends are women I've never met in person, and probably never will, but because we've walked this healing journey together and shared our hearts, we've formed an incredible bond.

So last week I started another group, feeling that I'm at a place in my own healing where I can offer support that I couldn't before in the previous group. As I was trying to think of a name for the group, the phrase 'beauty for ashes' kept coming to mind over and over, and I realized it was the perfect name for the group, based on the scripture found in Isaiah 61. Just as God can take land completely ravaged by fire and bring forth from it beauty and restoration, He can take a situation as ugly and devastating as sexual abuse and use it to bring hope, wholeness, and complete healing to the lives of those who will put their trust in Him.

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