From the Ashes

The world is such a beautiful, broken place.  I've been thinking a lot lately about pain and loss.  A month ago I watched my aunt grieve the death of her son, and presently I'm grieving the loss of my own unborn child.  But through this lens of my own present sadness, I feel humbled. Loss is all around, not always in the form of death. Besides the loss of loved ones, many suffer the loss of dreams and expectations.  The dream of having children. The dream of being happily  married.  The expectation of health.  Some people have to grieve and struggle with maybe not having the life they thought they would when they were young and dreams seemed only certain to come true.

Infertility is a death. Divorce is a death. Never finding that right someone is a death. Living with chronic illness is a death. Death of what we have deeply hoped and desired, death of our expectations for our lives. And each death brings it's own special form of grief.

A sweet friend of mine sent me a little silver necklace after my miscarriage with a little pendant with the word hope engraved on it.  A card accompanying this gift was filled with Bible verses about hope. Hope in the face of suffering, hope as an anchor for the soul, hope that does not disappoint.  And what is our hope in the midst of this world of loss and sadness?

Redemption. That is our hope.  That sadness and grief will be bought back from death and transformed into something new.  That beauty will spring from the ashes of loss, the proceeding devastation fertilizing the soil in which new life will grow.   And this hope is truly  my anchor.  It keeps me still when the waves of fear and depression threaten to overwhelm me. It sets my eyes before me on the Author of my faith, the One who endured loss, suffering, and death to identify with our own, and then overcame them.