Beautiful Things

Two years ago, I had just moved back home after the devastating blow of my dad's diagnosis made its way to my heart. I couldn't allow myself to be a newly independent college student exploring the world anymore. I was torn apart, yet unable to understand or piece together my "new" life--a life marked by visits to doctors and dreaded scan results. Days of watching my dad lay in bed, his body failing him as he tried to survive the "healing" chemicals dumped into his veins. Two years ago I was breaking.

A year ago, I had just started school and was overwhelmed with grief--emotions I had no built-in "equipment" to handle, no past experiences to guide me as I attempted to traverse the waters of my life without a dad. I was sitting in a counselor's office, sobbing as I tried to put words to the storm inside me. I was sitting at a table beside other men and women facing the ugly effects of death on their once happy lives. I was trying to find the "new" me--the me without my dad, the me who would never be a normal 19 year old again. I was broken.

Today, I am listening to the words of this song...and my heart finds rest, knowing my story has finally found a way out. The jumbled pieces of my brokenness have found expression in these words:

You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us

By Gungor

Today, God has made beautiful things out of my dust. Two years ago I was breaking...A year ago I was broken...Today, out of the broken and dry, barren and cracked soil of my heart, beautiful things are sprouting. Because God makes beautiful things out of dust. God makes beautiful things out of cancer. God makes beautiful things out of death. God makes beautiful things out of loneliness and grief. God makes beautiful things out of gut-wrenching tears. God makes beautiful things out of BROKENNESS.

So today, as I begin to discover the loveliest of things sprouting out of my brokenness, my prayer is that you will begin to understand the power of God to not only create galaxies out of nothingness, but also to mend broken hearts. To create beautiful things out of US. To make beautiful things in YOU. Do you believe it?

Finding Rest in the Rhythm

Do you ever wonder at the rhythm that is life?  Summer...fall...winter...spring.  A baby is born, grows up, has babies of her own, tends to them, then ultimately dies.  The sun rises high into the sky and, just like clockwork, sets in a glorious array of colors.  Everything seems to follow this God-made rhythm.  

It makes me wonder how I can be so incredibly grateful for a myriad of blessings that abound in my life, and yet still be overwhelmed with grief and sadness as I consider the part of the rhythm we all long to avoid...death.  Brokenness, pain, suffering, heartache.  I am confronted with this beat again and again: A beautiful woman whose face is bruised at the hands of someone she trusted, an incredible man whose life story ended long before it seemed to reach a conclusion, a young girl ridding herself of the terrifying unknown of an unexpected pregnancy, even a family struggling to gain a hold on a vermin that has invaded their sacred space.  And just when we think the world should stop spinning on its access in somber recognition of the death that haunts us all, the rhythm continues.

Babies are still born.  Spring still comes.  The sun still rises.  And life marches on, seemingly oblivious to the fact that some have not marched with it.  While I do not understand the rhythm, I can choose to fight it with dissonant clangings of my own, or I can rest in knowing that the God who is sovereign over all things NEVER changes.  As the summer fades into fall, as the sun rises in the sky, as I mourn over death that surrounds me, as I revel in the delights that bring me joy...HE remains. Unmovable, unshakable, unchanged.  If life follows a rhythm, He is the steady beat of the metronome, guiding the entire rhythm: "Ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta......."  

So today...I will find rest in His gentle whisper: "Be still and know that I am God..."

I hate death

After finishing my favorite fiction book last night, still crying like a baby even though this was my third time through it, I decided something.

I hate death.

Granted, it is a little more raw this time. But these words gripped me, and nailed it right on the head: "Cancer is the ultimate identity theft. It's a vulture--it doesn't care how old you are, where you're from, who your daddy is, how much money you have or how important you think you are. It is no respecter of persons...Cancer hurts beyond the pain. It is a cycle of diagnosis, prognosis, and scan. We live not paycheck to paycheck, but scan to scan. Every time we stand in the doctor's office and hear the scan results, we think, It's getting bigger and I can't do a single thing about it. That may be the single worst feeling in the world...We feel as though we're always just one scan away from hearing the words metastatic, which is often followed by, I'm going to miss you..." (from Where the River Ends)

Charles Martin hit the nail on the head. Reading those words delivered me straight back to a year ago...to that doctor's office, where we did exactly what he describes. Hoping, praying...and then trying to catch our hearts as they sank below our knees.

Death is ugly, and I hate it. I told God that last night as I lay awake into the wee hours of the morning, and He said to me,

"ASH, I hate it too."

Gettin'-Stuck Miracles

The day had arrived. I was to be taking a test that would determine my eligibility to remain in school for the next step of the program in which I am enrolled. A big deal...and I was sick. I woke up with a pounding sinus headache and a fever. Knowing I could not miss the test for anything, even what I perceived to be a *terrible* illness, I rolled out of bed and into my car, heading toward the test center.

As I fell into my uncomfortable (no surprise there) chair, facing the grimacing computer before me, I was reminded of everything God and I had conquered in the past year. Lots of scary firsts. Lots of do-it-perfectly-or-get-kicked-out skills tests. Lots of studying until facts and figures oozed out of my ears. Lots of wiping people's you-know-whats. Lots of me falling on my face (figuratively and sometimes literally) before God, inadequate and weak. Lots of Him pulling through for me, giving me the strength to do what I could not do on my own.

This big test day would be no different.

As the proctor droned on with instructions repeated three, four, even five times, my mind raced to that quiet place I share with Jesus. The conversation went something like this:

Me: Jesus, I'm sick. I don't know why you let this happen at a time like this, but it is what it is. So if you want me to be a nurse, you better do something.
Jesus: ASH, I have already won this battle for you. I have gone before you and prepared a straight path for you. All you have to do today is STAND and let me lead you down the path I have prepared. Got it?
Me: If you say so...

That was two weeks ago, and I am still in awe. I have learned something as I have journeyed with Jesus on this nursing school adventure: If God calls you to be something or to go somewhere or to do something, He doesn't leave you high and dry and expect you to get there on your own. No, He'll pick you up and take you there. He'll part the Red Sea. He'll open doors and hearts and wallets. And when He doesn't, He'll give you the wisdom and strength and ability to do what you need to do to get where He has called you to be.

Have I worked hard? Yeah. Could I have passed that test on my own? No way. That's why I came out of that testing center saying, "God, you must really want me to be a nurse!"

I am learning that the absolute BEST place to be is in a bind. You heard me...in a sticky, no-way-out-on-my-own bind. Why? Because ordinary (and not-so-ordinary) miracles start happening as God works on your behalf. Have YOU ever allowed yourself to get stuck as you step out in faith to do something beyond your capability for God?

Amen.

Amen. AMEN. May we be men and women who seek out JUSTICE, who pray for the OPPRESSED, who LONG for the day when all will be made right again. May we be men and women who willingly TAKE UP THE cross to follow Him...into the homes of the broken...right where He's been all along. Amen.

Oye.

The dark sky was crystal clear, twinkling with thousands of God-lights. With a mug of steaming tea in one hand, and a sweatshirt in the other (ahem. SWEATSHIRT. alleluia, fall is coming!), I reclined my chair and took the time to soak in the BIGNESS of the sky and the moon. As quickly as it takes for me to fall to my knees, I was once again reminded of my smallness. I am tiny. Nothing. A blip when lined up against the galaxies. But somehow, despite my smallness, God can use me to do BIG things in His larger-than-life story.

Oye. Talk about humbling.

When I think about where He has me, who He has me seeing, touching, speaking to on a daily basis, I am shattered in simultaneous gratitude and fear. How can I EVER fulfill that job description?

I can't. I can't. And it's in that little word that I find my greatest hope. I can't. My back is up against the wall...And I serve a God who is the Master Rescuer, a God who has my back every time.

So, at the end of the day, I'm ready. My BIG God and I can do anything, and as that anything becomes something, His larger-than-life story is written. And somehow, by His overwhelming grace, my name finds its way into the script.

Ever think about that? If you try, your head might hurt. Sometimes all I can say is...

Oye.

Faithful

Today, I sipped on a pumpkin spice latte as I celebrated and reveled in God's faithfulness to me. Fall is coming, as promised by the hint of vibrant colors beginning to creep over trees in my neighborhood and the cool, gentle breeze sweeping through my hair. Fall is my favorite season, and this fall I am reminded of God's faithfulness. Sometimes, His faithfulness is like a gentle whisper...barely heard above the commotion of the world as we are hurled from one trial to another. Sometimes, like the day my Daddy took his final breath on this earth, His faithfulness is firm but silent. Sometimes, like my today, His faithfulness screams, "I am HERE! I am RUNNING with you!" Sometimes, His faithfulness is a sweet melody over a sleeping heart. But just as I know that fall is coming, because it always comes...I know that He is ALWAYS faithful. He is faithful in the Winter, when all is dark and you think there is no life left in you. He is faithful in the Spring, when you are filled with joy and just want to scream His name at the top of your lungs. He is faithful in the Summer, when the steadiness of His presence is as sure as the heat of the noonday sun. And He is faithful in the Fall, when you feel like you are a tree being stripped of your garment. He is faithful. He is faithful. He is faithful. Mmmm. I can curl up with a good book and a steamy pumpkin spice latte, knowing that I will wake up tomorrow a different person...every day brings new challenges and rewards that will change the story of my life. But HE will always be the same. Because HE is faithful.