A favorite scripture is Isaiah 61:2 where it is written that the pain of Israel (God’s chosen people) will one day be removed…this was a prophesy of Jesus as well and includes ALL of God’s people- the Jew and the Gentile alike…which means you and me.

When the pain of their -or our- suffering is removed they will be given a gift of beauty for ashes.

My Joyce Meyer devotional, Closer to God Each Day, writes “allow the Holy Spirit to blow away the ashes and replace those ashes with beauty”.

The word picture that gave me is not what I previously saw when meditating on this passage before.

My pain, my sorrow, my struggle are like me being in a fire to refine me.

What is left, what is burnt off, are the ashes- follow me?

The ashes of my pain need to blow away for the beauty beneath to be revealed.

If your house is as dusty as mine then you can visualize this… See a piece of furniture forgotten and covered under a thick layer of dust. When you take out the Pledge and dust cloth and put in a little elbow grease, the dust is gone and the furniture looks brand new.

I have to let the ashes of my pain to be refined before they blow away…meaning I have to feel the suffering first.

Then, here is the interesting part, I have to let the Holy Spirit remove the ashes for the exchange.

Sounds easy, right?

I think, though, that I sit in the ashes longer than necessary and refuse to be cleaned.

Why?

I don’t really know for sure but maybe because I want some kind of earthly justifice or justification for what has hurt me before I let the beauty show…I would rather sit dirty and wait to be proven right then just be cleaned to look brand new.

How’s that for convicting?

Joyce finishes with this thought: ” God has the same good plan for you that He had the moment you arrived on this planet…This is a new day…Your future has no room in it for your past…It is time to go forward!”

It is time for beauty instead of ashes.

Isaiah 43 says these great words~Forget what happened before and do not think about the past. Look at the new thing I am going to do! It is already happening! Don’t you see it?? I will make a road in the desert and rivers in dry land!