Beauty For Ashes

by Dina Sleiman

The last Friday of the month is our poetry day here at Inkwell Inspirations. I wanted to think of a poem to honor our "Week of Jen" theme, but I was really struggling. I searched through my collection of poetry that I've written over the years. I toyed with some love poems, but they didn't seem quite right. I was ready to give up and just go with them, when I remembered this simple verse I jotted down recently while working on a blogpost about Bathsheba. The name of the poem is "Beauty for Ashes."

Jen's book is about a young pastor's wife who has given up on her husband. Five years have passed since her marriage went up in flames. She ran away. She gave up. She had no hope. She was convinced her marriage was over. But God had other plans.

Isn't that so often the case in our lives? God takes our messes and turns them into something beautiful. God gives us beauty for ashes. The oil of joy for mourning. The garments of praise for the spirit of heaviness.

What an amazing God we serve.

Beauty for Ashes

I bring to him my garden overcome

with thorns and weeds, without order

or purpose, an unkempt riot of color.

I bring to him the tangle, the mess,

the mixed up threads I worked so

hard to weave. Only to disappoint.

I bring to him the charred remains

the smoking mire, the gray ashes of

all I held dear and lost in the flames.

I bring to him the bloody remnants,

torn and shredded, of my cold dead heart,

which once beat with well-intentioned love.

I must die to truly live.

Make me beautiful once again.

Overwhelm with me bouquets

of fragrant roses, petals strewn in joy.

Has God ever given you beauty for ashes? What does this phrase mean to you? Have you ever had a second chance at love?