BEAUTY FOR ASHES

After thinking through and letting our referral sink in, I have had so many connections and AH HA moments. I know I mentioned that our new son was born on the day my mom passed away. She died 5 years ago and he was born on the 5th anniversary of her death.
I have a daughter who has a birthday 2 days before and I have a son that has a birthday 2 days after (so yes, we will have 3 birthdays in 6 days here at our house). Does that make sense? I use to say that my kid's birthdays were the joy that sandwiched the pain but now... there is joy even on that sorrowful day.

I went on a Women's retreat in early November. I was having a quiet time outside (looking out into the gorgeous smokey mountains) and I was just bawling crying. Our retreat was on the landscapes of life that God had taken us through. I started thinking about how my parents passed away 18 months apart and how my kids were born at the same time. My daughter was 6 months old when my dad passed away and my son was born 2 days after my mom died. SO, it was like I had one foot in the greenest of pastures and one foot in the desert. It was such a hard time. My mom had Alzheimers and then cancer took her life. It was so hard and so dark. I started thinking about my longing for them and how I was an orphan even though they had raised me until I was an age that I could care for myself. I still have longings. I still want a mom and a dad. I started thinking about my orphan in Ethiopia at that moment and thought... in some small way (VERY SMALL!) I know what it is like to not have a mom and a dad. It does feel like rejection even for me. I want them and they don't come... they never will. I suddenly was filled with joy that the Lord would let me experience those feelings so when Abel ever starts to feel that way I would be ever so sensitive to him.
I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THE VERSE Isaiah 61:3 "To give them beauty for ashes,The oil of joy for mourning,The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness"
I could see a shift in my spirit over the last 6 months... there was such healing coming to my heart through this adoption. Then I just had an "ah ha" moment during that quiet time that this was the BEAUTY FOR ASHES! Just the connection of being left as an orphan (again, in a small way) and how the Lord has given me a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. I closed my eyes and saw this image...
I saw my parents grave and it was as if flowers were blooming there.
The crazy thing is 2 later BABY ETHIOPIA was born ... on the very day my mom left this earth ... my flower ... My beauty for ashes!!! My parents being part of the soil in which those flowers are blooming because of the gift they have given me in their death. That I will connect to the orphan in this precious baby's heart.
BEAUTY FOR ASHES!


Still letting it all sink in :-)