Beauty will Rise

"Beauty will Rise" by Steven Curtis Chapman.  All week I've been singing it in my head, thinking of my life, of my children's lifes, seeing such beauty and remembering when we thought it was ash.  There are things in my life that I feel like if I could lay it all out in front of someone, show them the proof of what it surely was, what it more surely is today, they couldn't help but believe in this God, the one true God who is all about trading us beauty for ashes.

"Out of these ashes beauty will rise."*  All day I kept hearing it, all day remembering what today is.  A day to remember the worst day, the ugliest day, a day that on the surface was nothing but ashes.  The day our Savior died, though He lived a perfect life, he was beaten and hung, and then the real pain, He took upon Himself the penalty for the sins of the world.  Darkness, pain, tears, and despair.

And yet death could not contain Him, God would take these ashes and make such beauty, it was something we could have never dreamed.  Life, in abundance for you and for me, for everyone, our sins forgiven.  We can now enter eternity to live with our Savior.  Such beauty,  those who despaired that day could never have imagined, could never have expected that in order for this beauty God needed ashes to work with.

"For we know joy is coming in the morning."*  This Easter we already know the ending, we've tasted the beauty and know soon there will be more, soon there will be nothing but beauty.  We can endure the pain of this world, our heavenly Father is working, taking the ashes to build beauty into our lives.

"This is the promise, it will take our breathe away to see the beauty that He's made out of the ashes."*  Have you seen it?  The beauty, it's for all of us.  He loves you desperately, so desperately he found a way to be able to bring you home to Him, will you let Him?

"The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to grant to those who mourn in Zion—to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit" Isaiah 61:1-3


*All quotes are from the song "Beauty will Rise" by Steven Curtis Chapman