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After cataract surgery, her glasses were as thick as proverbial “coke bottle bottoms.” This was in the era before modern day intraocular lens implants made such things unnecessary. Her ear drums had been perforated as a child and the hearing aides that helped her to hear more normally certainly did not enhance her physical appearance. As a child she had a bout with rheumatic fever which resulted in an enlarged heart which, of course, she carried with her for the remainder of her natural life. Eight children and forty-one years after this lovely woman married her beau, she no longer had the spark in her eye nor the spring in her step that had been so attractive before. Time and circumstances had taken their toll. As a teenager with a mom that was almost sixty, I saw little inherent beauty in my mother. However, over time and where my mother is concerned, God has given me “beauty for ashes.” This expression is taken from the writings of Isaiah; we will explore it in today's devotional message.

“The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me, Because the LORD has anointed Me To preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives, And the opening of the prison to those who are bound; To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, And the day of vengeance of our God; To comfort all who mourn, To console those who mourn in Zion, To give them beauty for ashes, The oil of joy for mourning, The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; That they may be called trees of righteousness, The planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified.” (Isaiah 61.1-3).

Make no mistake about it, I do not think that Isaiah's prophecy was about my mother; it was about the changes that would occur when the gospel system was ushered in with the coming of Messiah. In fact, this was the very prophecy that Jesus read in the synagogue at Nazareth (see Luke 4.17-21). He gave them, “Beauty for ashes, The oil of joy for mourning, The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; That they may be called trees of righteousness, The planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified.” As we might say, he “turned everything inside out.” However, the effects of His ministry did not stop in Judea or Nazareth. Years later, a man by the name of Saul (later know as Paul the apostle), experienced this same paradigm shift when he came to understand that Jesus was truly the promised Messiah. Hear his own description of the u-turn that he experienced. “But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ.” (Philippians 3.7-8).

The change of values which Paul experienced was the result of an inner change. The things that were gain to him which he later counted as loss, did not change; Paul changed! Again make no mistake about it; I in no way am considering myself equal or even comparable to the peerless apostle, but I do think that I have experienced some of the paradigm shift that occurs when one learns to value the things of God and concurrently devalue the things of men! If in no other realm, I have experienced that change in how I view my mother. What was once unlovely, He has restored! He has given me beauty for ashes!

This same change can occur in how we view life in general. Lemons can become lemonade and problems can become opportunities. It really is all in how we look at it. God can comfort all who mourn and give them beauty for ashes – “...that He may be glorified!”

Questions:

No questions asked!!!!

"Refreshment in Refuge" from Gina Burgess

Things that go bump in the night