Beauty for ashes...

I am not particularly proud of the emotions that have marched through my heart this morning... I don't even know where to begin... I am constantly having to stop mid-rant and remind myself of who my God is. My God is not weakness. My God is not powerless. My God is not helpless. I am. But He, most definitely, is not. I keep having to remind myself that He knit my daughter together when she was still in her mother's womb, that He witnessed her birth into complete and utter poverty, that while I was welcoming a healthy, pink baby boy into my teeny, tiny world, she was given up by her Mama to live among strangers. He was still there, and He still loved her, and He had a plan. Sin is ugly, but my God is beautiful, and I must choose to glorify Him through each and every painful step, through each disappointment and setback. I keep reminding myself that He used the devastation of an earthquake that killed hundreds of thousands of people to bring my beautiful Maphada into our lives. Can I really question how long it will take? Am I ultimately angry with my God when I grumble and complain about the wait? Who, after all, is in control? 

I know the answer to that question. I will once again confess my impatient, questioning heart and fill it with His promises. I will cling to the truth that God is incapable of making mistakes. He is always righteous, always just. No man can thwart His perfect plan, and He is in control.

So, I wait for Him to make something beautiful from the ashes. Glimpses of what that beauty will look like keep me sane... I see it in her sparkling eyes, I hear it in her joyful laughter, I feel it when she is in my arms... It still hurts, but the beauty outweighs every heartache, and I would do it all over again in a second to know her and to be known as Mama Maphada. :')

        "Giving them a garland instead of ashes,

The oil of gladness instead of mourning,

The mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting,

So they will be called oaks of righteousness,

The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified."

Isaiah 61:3