Beauty for ashes

In keeping with poultry month, behold this picture. Hard to believe any creature this ugly could be the focus of Thanksgiving meals... that so many happy memories begin at a table filled with family/friends enjoying a roasty, toasty, u-u-u-gly turkey.


Which brings to mind my ugly paper project. After all that paper was covered with layers and layers of new paint, I held a beauty contest. Of course there were the "also-rans", and there were the traditional runners-up. But this, by far, was my favorite.


In both cases, while the "ugly" is still there, they have been transformed, made acceptable.

March is always a hard month for me. It brings a Grey cloud that hovers over my head until the dates on the calendar show that yet another year has passed since my last conversation with my son... since that last time I heard him say, "Ma-a-ather. Wha-a-t's goin' on?"

Yet, while dwelling underneath this hovering cloud, there is the shining remembrance of my verse for that dreadful day (chosen while life was still so normal and undisturbed), I had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. (Psalm 27:13) Before I knew I needed the help, God was there with His Word, to comfort my heart and strengthen my being.

How precious this particular verse is to me. Above all others, it shows me the concern of an Almighty God for a poor and needy mother.

My son is gone from my reach. The ugly fact is still there, but my life has been "sloshed" by God, who gives "beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified. Isaiah 61:3