What are the ashes in our life? They’re the things that we consider as a failure, bad, very hard and losses. Including rejections, abuse, hurts, pain and sufferings. Can be in any form of abuse in the emotional, verbal, physically, financial, or sexual etc. Can also be times of neglect, abandonment, shamed. Anything which tears you down to and it makes you feel, or you think bad about yourself or makes you think your crazy is a form of abuse. Ashes could also be accidental tragedy, natural catastrophes or unjust attacks.
Ashes are something we consider loss. But God picks up the ashes we’ve experienced in our life and leads us out and makes us beautiful. Beauty is inner healing which flows out for others and self.
The term “Beauty for Ashes” is found in the Bible in Isaiah 61: Verse 3 “To console those who mourn in Zion, To give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; That they may be called trees of righteousness, The planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified.”
It does not happen overnight some things do take time but if you’ve been experiencing loss or abuse your heart can be healed through God. This does not necessarily mean you will forget but it does mean He heals an inner heart of pain and suffering. He replaces it with restorative love. So, when you remember the heart doesn’t shut you down in more pain.
When someone has been abused, discarded and hurt it takes some time to heal, think straight and be restored. From my post ‘Grief Work’ it explains the amount of emotions and how it is not a systemic process. Ashes in our lives will produce grief.
Ashes in our lives are about how God uses the things we have gone through once we let him work in our lives and he leads us through healed and restored. He picks up the ashes and makes something beautiful in our lives.
A support group that I lead was called beauty for ashes. It’s based on this truth ‘that little girls need affection, affirmation and acceptance from their dads.” Unless they get it when their young, unmet needs longs for that and the girl aims to fill unmet needs in unhealthy ways. I am going to say boys also need affirmations, acceptance and affection from their moms. They will also fill their unmet needs in unhealthy ways. Those three areas will cause deficiency within the individual and as an adult their unmet needs and coping abilities will be underdeveloped. Both parents should be affirming, accepting and affectionate.
Addictions can begin by attempting to fill an unmet need that the pain, neglect, or abuse put there. We’re all designed with a need to feel loved, wanted and accepted plus we humans need food and shelter. Those needs refused or is out of balance put a person in an unhealthy pattern of thinking.
Also, real love doesn’t compel you to be anything you are not, and it does not make you responsible for them.
Most of the time for you to be healed means ‘walking through the pain’ by viewing and releasing thru the expression of the hurt. Processing grief with truths and walking in the forgiveness about it after it has been worked through, the ache of things we go through must be let out. Pain which is repressed or denied just stays gnawing like a sore. Forgiveness isn’t about the offender or abuser. It is for you to be free of the pain, hurt, and shame. Forgiveness will set you free to be whole and healthy.
How exactly does God take the ash and transform them into something beautiful? In Isaiah 61:1-3 is all about the good news of salvation. This prophecy was fulfilled instantly when Christ Jesus walked the ground and died for our sins. It is also declaring a promise of comfort and console for those who mourn, to give them beauty for ashes, oil of joy for mourning, garment of praise for heaviness… Therefore, as this describes how God gives us beauty for ashes you will be able to lean on him to guide you through the hard, extreme and devasting situations as he will give you inner healing, grace and strength (beauty) for the ashes of life.