He gives beauty for ashes.

"He gives beauty for ashes." I recall hearing that still small voice whispering this to me periodically over the past few months. Days after Faith's passing when I first began hearing this whisper, it felt like a distant dream, like a light house barely visible for a sailor to see so far from shore. Being in the heart of the storm of grief, it was just too far way to focus on. The storm was overwhelming, and I, the sailor navigating my way through the storm of grief, was frantically trying just to steer myself through the giant waves that were attempting with ever increasing strength, to completely drown me. The small, glistening light, was in my peripheral. It was barely visible.

"I just need to survive this. Thats all I can focus on." That was my constant response to that whisper for months. Beauty? What beauty?! All I see is storm clouds, and tidal waves of pain!

Light? What light? I can see a glisten if I focus hard enough, but it takes too much concentration. It's too dim. These waves, this pain, this feeling of being a sailor lost at sea, is taking all the focus I have just to keep my head above water and breath.

So I treaded water. I just kept on treading week after week, now month after month. I would grab onto a life raft that would float my way every now and then. Whether it was a scripture, a worship song, a friend's comforting words, or a moment of concentration on that glistening light, I would tread & hold on. It was all I could do. My only other option was to be consumed by these waves, and I knew that would be the end of me. So I would focus my eyes on that dim, glistening light for as long as I could, believing I would reach that light of hope, the light house far from the storm, barely visible, but still there, in time. I somehow had hope that the storm would seize, and somehow the waters would calm, and the light would indeed guide me to shore.

Now, as the storm gives up for periods of time, I've been able to hang on longer now to the life rafts that have been thrown to me and I have begun swimming towards that light house, running into choppy points and tidal waves on the way. But, I'm making progress towards that light, and it is getting bright every day.

 I am surviving the death of my first born daughter, and to me, that is something I doubted was possible.  Most days, it feels mostly like a dream. She feels like a dream. I carried her for 8 months, and spent 90 beautiful minutes with her in my arms, but, now that she's gone from this world...my mind gets confused if she was real or not. Sometimes I'll have moments where I relive giving birth to her all over again, and the pain of labor reminds me that yes, she was real! The line down my tummy that only pregnancy gives you, still lingers, and reminds me that she was here. She did live. And because Jesus still lives, so does she.

So does He gives beauty for ashes? I'm starting to see the light of that beauty, brighter now. I'm starting to seeing a few details of that lighthouse at shore, as I swim closer. As Jesus calms the waves, and whispers to me to follow the light. His light. His hope. His promise to give beauty for ashes. I begin to see the beauty. His beauty. He gives us life for death. Light in the midst of darkness. Strength to tread water in the midst of a terrible storm. Hope of eternity when we lose precious children from this life. When we endure tragedies.

He gives me light and hope. Hope is the stable and constant life raft that is carrying me through. It doesn't give up. It doesn't fall apart. And that must be the beauty He gives for the ashes that I have left here.