Ashes for Beauty - an Unfair Exchange

 

Has your child ever dropped a bowl on your tiled floor and you've watched in horror as it breaks into a thousand, jagged pieces? 

If it's a Kmart purchase, you probably don't really care.  You clean up the mess and move on.

But what if it's precious?   Perhaps you've had it for years.   Perhaps it's the gift your old friend gave you before she passed away.   Perhaps you made it and now it's irreparable. 

I get it.   At times, I've cleaned up and moved on, and other times I haven't.  I've ranted about carelessness and mess and all that.   Really?  Yep.

If you wanted to punish the child for said carelessness and make a point, then you could demand they fix it.  But can they fix it?  No.   They simply can't.   No amount of wanting to on your part or theirs could change it when it's this bad.   You have to just pick up the pieces and throw it all away. 

Of course, if the bowl smashed into a few large pieces, perhaps you could both pick up the pieces and mend it.   Get some super glue out and stick it back together.   The Japanese do that.  They pick up the pieces and they mend the item.   But not with super glue to hide the cracks.  They mend it with gold so you can see the cracks.  The scars add to the beauty of  the object.   The scars are obvious and lead to questions and conversation.  The precious object now has a story to tell - a story of redemption.    This art form is called kintsugi - literally meaning 'repaired with gold'.  In the hands of a skilled craftsman, the broken object is transformed into something even more beautiful and loved.

Here I am with so many broken pieces, that I didn't break.   There are too many pieces to find and put back together.   I can't find them all, nor understand them all, though I want to.   It's a painful mess, staring me in the face.   And I honestly don't know where to start.  

I know where I WANT to start.   I want to start by ranting at the person who caused it.   And there's more than one of them.  I want to have that conversation, make that phone call, send that letter.   And I've done that before now.   To no avail.  Just made it worse.  Made it harder and more painful.  Made them even less able to fix it and more inclined to lash out in their own defence.  And the brokenness is still there, glaring at me, compounded by guilt and regret and broken relationship.  

Once again, God asks me to surrender something.   He quietly and gently asks that, instead of ranting and needing it to be understood and fixed, if I can simply leave it with Him.   How incredibly unfair!   If they can't fix it, they could at least listen to how painful and wrong it all was and still is.   That much is the least they can do, surely. 

But even that is too much.   Just like ranting at a child for dropping something precious on your tiled floor is too much.    It's too much.  It doesn't help.  It doesn't heal.   It doesn't fix anything. 

It's not enough to forego asking them to fix the unfixable.   More than that, I need to forego the demand for justice or even understanding.    In my pain, I must not rant to the one who broke my heart, but I need to leave those broken pieces instead with the  One who can not only gather them up, but make something beautiful out of them.   And what grace is that, that I am not even being asked to gather it all up and fix it myself?  

But they will never understand how much it hurts.    How can they?   Each heart knows its own pain.   They will never really understand how much damage there is, any more than I can recognise how each tiny piece goes back together.  So what to do instead of what I want to do, what my heart thinks it 'needs' to heal?

Let Him have the ashes, the brokenness, and the demands for understanding and justice.  

While I hold all those ashes, my hands can't hold His beauty.   And while I hold hot coals, my heart will continue to be in pain.

Instead of the ashes I hold in my hands, He promises to create beauty.  Beauty for ashes.  That's the promise, the exchange that's offered.   It isn't fair, but neither was the cross.    That gracious promise of exchange was purchased by the precious blood of a sinless Man on a grossly unfair cross.  

The promise is conditional because it's an exchange.   ...........to bestow on them a crown of beauty INSTEAD of ashes...   And that means I have some choices to make. 

I cannot receive the healing promised without relinquishing the ashes.    I need to forego some things.   That's what forgiveness is.   It's a foregoing.   It's letting go of all that is unjust and painful and wrong.   It's not even insisting on gathering it up for later.    It's simply letting Him have it, to do with it what He will.  

'But', you say, as I have many times, 'someone needs to pay for it all - for the wrong, for the damage, the heartache'.  I've cried out to the Lord for that very thing - for payment, for justice.   'Somebody needs to pay for it!'   And He quietly but firmly whispered to me,  'Somebody already did - it is finished!'

Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.  John 19:30

Surely He took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered Him punished by God,     stricken by Him, and afflicted.   But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on Him,  and by His wounds we ARE healed.  Isa 53:4-5

And indeed it is finished, it's done, if we'll let it be finished.   Can we trust Him with it all?   Can I trust Him with it all? 

So, if it is finished, can we let the healing begin?   IF we'll receive the beauty for the ashes we've grown used to, that tangible evidence of wrong done that we hang onto and wear for others to see.    In Old Testament times, people sat in sackcloth and ashes to show that they were mourning for someone or something.   There's a time for mourning.  But then there's a time to rise up and put on a different garment, a new demeanour, and to move forward, and leave it behind us.  

Instead of ashes, can we be content with scars, golden scars?   Can we let Him do His redeeming work in us, as He puts the pieces back together - better, stronger, with a beauty that points to Him, the Master Craftsman, the Redeemer?    

Jesus came for this:   to comfort all who mourn,  and provide for those who grieve in Zion - to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.  Isa 61:2-3

Ashes - what was done TO us?   Or beauty - what He can do IN us?

Can we trust ourselves instead to Him who holds healing in His hands?   Can I?   

I simply must, or the last part of this chapter will be my reality.   And that is far worse than the ashes.   

For thus says the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel:  “In returning and rest you shall be saved; In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.”  But you would not.......  Isaiah 30:15

..............Instead, He entrusted Himself to Him who judges justly.   “He himself bore our sins” in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by His wounds you HAVE been healed.”   1 Peter 2:23,24

Once again, a beautiful song: 

I came to You with my heart in pieces
And found the God with healing in His hands
I turned to You, put everything behind me
And found the God, who makes all things new