Holding on to Ashes

     If you've read the past two or three posts I've written, you may have noticed a theme, one that's not particularly cheerful. If you're wondering what is going on to cause all of these pensive thoughts I've been expressing, there's really not much to tell. It's just the season that I have been in, but I'm at the place now where I think I can spot the end of this season on the horizon. I believe all seasons of life have a purpose, and maybe the difficult ones are meant to teach us something. In finding my way back to a more cheerful side of myself, I have learned some important lessons. A verse that has been particularly comforting to me over the past few weeks is Isaiah 61:3 ...and provide for those who grieve in Zion—to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.

     As I say frequently in my writing, I'm not a theologian. You know by now that I write from my own perspective, which is one of a person who has had no formal training in the area of theology and is just sharing her thoughts the best she can For the sake of clarity, here's how I'm defining ashes in this context of this blog post. In the literal sense, as I'm sure you already know, ashes are the remnants left over after everything else has been burned up in a fire. Figuratively, in this verse, ashes are the things we wrestle with internally when we go through hard times in our lives. 

     Why would I hold on to ashes? Shouldn't getting rid of the negative junk on my mind be something that I look forward to? In some ways it is, but I have found that the process of trading in my ashes has not been without it's difficulties. I've learned that the first and most difficult step to trading ashes is the act of acknowledging that I have them, which can be a problem for a person like me who has a tendency to shove negative things to the back of my mind instead of confronting them head on. I also know that there is someone, devotional writers like to call him "the enemy" but his street name is Satan, who knows that this process is bringing me closer to God, which is the last thing he wants. The more I try to trade in those ashes, the more he tries to make me believe that it would be easier to just keep holding on to them. He even tricks me into having a twisted sense of pride about my ashes, tempting me to believe that I can use them as proof of some sort of personal strength I have as a result of going through hard times. In reality, the only thing holding on to these ashes is doing is preventing me from seeing the beauty that comes from trading them in. And so, I have decided that I no longer wish to keep them. I am making a trade for something better.   

     Sometimes, getting rid of your ashes is a very personal and private process, and there's nothing wrong with that. I happen to be someone who processes things by writing about them, and the results are blog posts like this.
      I'm trying to get rid of all of the ashes, and I have found that it's not as quick or easy as I would like for it to be. But I feel like it's something that needs to happen, and if I can get some good writing material out of the process, I just consider that a bonus.