It started me
thinking about how can we insulate ourselves against the storms of life. Storms
that include a man in a suit standing in the front of an auditorium telling my
co-workers and me our jobs were being eliminated. It’s a storm when one hears
the words “the treatment isn’t working and the cancer is growing.” Knowing you
will never see your 25-year-old son again is a heart-breaking storm. When you
hear “the prognosis is not good.”
It’s impossible to keep ourselves as oblivious to life storms as I was to the thunderstorm that swept through our area, but where is our protection? Recently I was reading how God give beauty instead of ashes.
.... to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mouring, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of rightesouness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor. (Isaiah 61:3).
You have kept track of every toss and turn through the sleepless nights. Each tear entered in your ledger, each ache written in your book. (Psalm 56:8)
Storms of life still hurt, they send us reeling , we are not oblivious to them, but God holds all of those tears and hurts in a bottle and so I hold onto the faith that he will turn those ashes into beauty.