Beauty for Ashes...

I don’t get it. I’m suppose to be excited. I get an email at 9:30PM saying ‘court decrees’ from our agency. The documents we were waiting on! Along with these she has attached 17 other necessary documents that are in our file for Embassy. I rush to what I thought would be a quick review and then...PAUSE. I ACHE!! What is this? I’m suppose to be excited? I’m suppose to be putting my business hat on and cruising through these papers so I can get back to her with a sign off so she can have them submitted TOMORROW!! I’m suppose to be ... ; it doesn’t matter. I’m not. I see death decrees; I see families torn apart by poverty; I see illness; I see scared boys faces when their ‘mug shots’ for the orphanage were taken; I see the witnesses statements;17 pages I’ve never seen GLARING at me. Then, there it is, beauty in the midst of the ashes: their new birth certificates AS SCHWARZ BOYS!! That THRILLS ME!! They are ours I’m reminded. They are NOT alone and orphaned anymore. They have been chosen. Thank you Jesus for that picture again and again of your love!!!

I have been wrestling (and will continue to) with this beauty from ashes picture in adoption. I think it’s a lot like our own salvation. You don’t get to beauty in Christ without recognition of the death that sin brings. The death of Christ. I don’t want to go there. I want to stay in beauty. I want to stay on THIS side of Easter Sunday...BEAUTY from the ashes. Why don’t I? I really think it’s just a matter of unbelief. I see the ‘ashes’ and think ...IMPOSSIBLE that beauty would come. But friends it does!! THAT’S THE GOSPEL...REDEMPTION!! OK...bear with me.

So I REALLY want to say that there is BEAUTY in this adoption journey. I want to only ‘celebrate’. But what I came face to face with in Africa was the stark reality of the ashes. I saw them again tonight. The ashes want to smother me. They want to make me run and hide. They scream that there is no hope and to fear. But folks, they’re ASHES...NOTHING LEFT!! I mourn what they were but press on to what lies ahead. A new thing...BEAUTY ...LIFE... HOPE.

Pray for us as we carry this lump in our throat and pit in our stomachs sometimes along with the desire to hope, expect and persevere. The ashes will be part of Ermias’ and Yakob’s story too. May we never let the ashes be isolated from the beauty that JESUS BRINGS ...

"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

(p.s. All the paperwork was NOT there in those 17 documents...we’ll try again for next Tuesday submission to Embassy. His timing is perfect.)