Wednesday March 29, 2006

God Gives Beauty for Ashes – If We Let Him

I don’t usually attend Women’s Fellowship at our church, White Oak Church of the Brethren, due to my schedule with Transport For Christ, but didn’t want to miss yesterday’s program, as our daughter-in-law, Chris was the speaker. 

Marcy Baum (above) divided the group into two sections to sing a song in rounds while Jen Martin (right) waits to lead her half of the audience.

Chris shared her story of growing up in a home without a father.  Her dad left the family when she was four, and to this day remains estranged from them, choosing rather to live in another area of the country.

Though I had previously heard most of Chris’ story, it was painful to hear her tell about the void that is left in a little girl and adult woman’s life when a father chooses to be absent.  But, it was wonderful to hear how God changed her scars and pain into beauty and strength.

She used the example of a small tree that was scarred by a vine that had wrapped itself around it so tightly that it threatened to strangle the life out of the tree (right).  Then she displayed a similar tree that had also been strangled by a vine, but her husband (our son Jeff) saw beauty in it, and turned it into a beautiful walking stick.  The scars remain, but they have been changed into a thing of beauty and uniqueness.

…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 KJV