Beauty for Ashes...

This is normally a day I sit and count my blessings and look for beauty around me. But my heart has been drifting in deeper directions so I'm sharing something different today. It's definitely God working toward showing me His beauty, His hand, in all things...

God is a God who delights in doing the impossible. We hear this all the time. I say it all the time. We are encouraged to ask for the impossible knowing God can and will do it. This is our faith.

So what happens when you ask for the impossible but don't receive it?

...We asked for healing. We didn’t receive it. Instead, we said goodbye to my father-in-law. And I’ve grappled with this for months, because I have seen God answer prayers of divine healing many times over and applied the same measures of faith to this prayer that went unanswered.

So if God can do the impossible, why didn’t he this time?

This morning after circling back to this constant question God whispered an answer: I am.

His answer immediately settled my soul. In Scripture God utters his name as I am. It's one of the most comforting names I call him, and this gentle reminder opened my ears to what else he was saying:

I am doing the impossible each day you wake up. Each moment you find a sliver of joy again. Each moment you breathe past the grief.  As you live in the valley of the shadow of death and no evil finds you. As your life moves forward and my hands tenderly sew up the hole that opened, I am doing the impossible. Because for those who loved Dad the most, living without him is the impossible, and yet by the grace of God, we are doing it.

And God receives every drop of the glory.

Is it the impossible prayer we wanted him to answer? No. But, in the end, was it the harder one to answer? As I watch my mother-in-law stand, still praising, in the midst of her pain, I know it is. Because as much as the hole Dad left for me, my husband, and my children is huge, it's immeasurable for her. And I know I’m watching God do the impossible every day.

Somehow, in the midst of that, there's beauty.

"...to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion--a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of despair. "~Isaiah 61:3