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“To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them 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
(Photo Credit: forashes.org)

Today’s devotion is based on Isaiah 61:3. While this passage brings me comfort, it also raises a question I often wrestle with:

How can there be even a smidgen of beauty in the midst of rubble? In ashes? How is that even possible?

These questions don’t come lightly. They rise from places in my life marked by grief, loss, and deep sorrow, moments where beauty felt completely absent.

I remember seeing my baby sister lying in her small white coffin. And in that moment, beauty was the furthest thing from my mind.

When I noticed my mama with bruises on her body, I couldn’t see anything beautiful in that.

The man I once knew for his strength and steady footing slowly became someone unrecognizable, reduced to a sloppy drunk after just one drink; nothing was charming about that.

Watching my grandpa become a prisoner in his own body, his once strong, barrel-chested frame turning frail and sunken, didn’t resemble anything I would call beautiful.

And my grandma—once so full and vibrant—grew thin and weak from illness. That, too, was hard to look at.

I can still see the back of my former husband as he walked away, leaving me behind in a heap of sobs, calling out his name. There was nothing picturesque about that moment.

My tiny 29-day-old granddaughter, swollen from fluids and lying in a medically induced coma after open-heart surgery—that wasn’t something my eyes could call beautiful.

Scars are not beautiful. Neither are hidden bruises, whether on the body or the heart.

Death is never beautiful, and the grief that follows is a weight no one should have to carry. Hunger isn’t beautiful. Loneliness isn’t beautiful.

Repossession isn’t quaint. Foreclosure is far from delightful.

So how can there be beauty for ashes?

It doesn’t come by erasing the ashes. It rises from them.

This kind of beauty doesn’t pretend the pain never happened. It doesn’t gloss over the heartbreak or tidy it up into something neat. Instead, it grows out of the very places that tried to break us. It’s a quiet, resilient kind of beauty, one that allows the hurt to be woven into something greater.

For me, that beauty is found in hope.

Hope when everything feels hopeless.
Hope that what is broken will one day be made whole.
Hope that the pain will not last forever.
Hope that justice will come.
Hope that scattered pieces can be gathered and rebuilt.
Hope for healing, for relief, for restoration.
Hope that light will break through the darkness and a new day will come.
Hope that this, too, shall pass.

Hope in heaven.

And most of all, hope in the promise that one day, we will see again the loved ones we’ve had to let go.

So today, I can say it with confidence, maybe even shout it from the mountaintop:

Thank You, Lord, for turning the ugliness in my life into something beautiful.

Out of sadness and hurt, will come strength and victory.