What is beautiful ashes of grace?

                         My blog is titled beautiful ashes of grace....so what exactly does that mean?

      It means that God takes all the ugliness and hurt of life and creates beauty out of it. He takes the pain we feel and the tears we cry and He creates strength and faith out of them. God takes the loneliness we feel and our fear that threatens to overwhelm us and He creates a kinship with others who have walked a similar journey. He gives us friendships that we would never have known had we not have walked through that pain. He gives us hope when all hope is lost. He reaches down past the pain-soaked tears and brokenness we feel and He touches our heart with His love and peace. We begin to see the rainbow through the flood. 

      God is a Father who hurts when His children hurt. He see every difficult step we take, every heavy sigh we give and He walks through it with us. He never leaves us alone even when we try to get away from Him. He is always pursuing, always protecting, always loving....and He is ALWAYS faithful. That is something that we can always count on...His faithfulness. Many times I have believed the lie that God doesn't really want good things for me and I see now, just how deceiving that lie can be...and how dangerous. For when I don't believe that God loves me or that He wants good for me, I quit trusting Him. And when I quit trusting Him, my feet begin to sink beneath the waves....

        I am learning more every day about what it means to have faith and to just trust Him. He has allowed us to be in this position where the girls and I have two choices...Trust that He will provide for us, or walk out on our own....I know that for us, the only way is trusting Him...as hard as it is. I know that I am learning a great deal about His love, His grace, and His provision and if I hadn't walked this, I don't believe I would have grabbed on to that faith with everything in me and held on with everything I am. 

       Searching His Word and seeing time after time when the situation looked so hopeless...Joseph sold by his own brothers, Daniel tossed into a den of killer lions, Jonah swallowed by a fish, Ruth left alone with no one to take care of her, the stories go on and on....and if we were walking their paths, we would feel that hopelessness....but it came down to those two choices for them too...and they chose faith. They chose to follow the One who held their heart. And not once did God fail them...not in a den of lions, or fiery furnace, or a belly of a fish, or in despair and loneliness. 

       How can I look back on all that I have already walked through and how I have seen God's grace and goodness in my life....how I can I look at that and then walk away? I cannot. Even though I don't like the situation or the choices that got us here, I KNOW that God has a purpose and a plan and that we haven't stopped it although we may have taken a slightly more difficult way there;) I know this because I can already see good coming from it.

      I am learning to physically show my children how God provides for us...not daddy, or me....but God Himself by laying our family on people's hearts. I am learning to read God's Word as a living breath of life for me. I am learning to bow my knees and open my hands in surrender to a God who pours out His blessings to us freely. I am learning to face my fears head on because God has not given me a spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind! I am learning to see all these ashes around me...my marriage, my daughter, my relationship with my children, my finances, my heart...and have this completely amazing and beautiful peace because I see Him taking these ashes and creating this beautiful picture. I have been given glimpses of this picture as it is coming together and it is so beautiful! 

           So let the fire come. Let the ashes swirl around me...it will be ok. I may cry as I square my shoulders and fall to my knees....because I am also learning that that is where I am strongest. I am learning to be in this perpetual state of on my knees:) The fear and anxiety that use to come with the problems, are coming less and less because God just keeps pouring out His grace. And I am learning how to be a warrior.....