When You Are Trying to Make Something Out of Your Ashes

I pushed my spade six inches down. I tilted and lifted. The soil broke and erupted and left behind a small crater with loose bits of dirt that had fallen back in.

I took one of my tulip bulbs and set it in the hole. I took care to place it so that roots were down and the stalk up. And then I pushed the dirt I had temporarily displaced back into the hole.

I did this some forty times. Digging. Sowing. Covering. Repeat.

Always six inches under.

And there in my brick planter leading up to our front door are the potential of daffodils, tulips, and hyacinths buried in the dirt, in the dark. When frost sends its death-kiss through the soil, the bulbs will slip into a deep slumber. If we didn’t already know the bulbs’ spring secret, we might say they were dead.

There they will wait through the bleak cold of winter, the dark days and nights, the rain, the snow, the icy winds and the thick fog.

And then spring comes.

Spring always comes. She carries her soft glow over wintered earth. She puts her warm breath to the ground, and it begins to thaw. The dormant bulbs awaken, at first a little lazily, yawning, stretching. Then they push out roots and send up stalks. Stalk, then bud, and, at long last, flower.

The final result is nothing short of glorious.   

Maybe you know that Jesus came to give beauty for ashes, but when you are sitting in the ash heap, it’s hard to see it.

I’ve taken my ashes, these last four miscarriages, and I’ve placed them in My Father’s hands. I’ve uttered words like “Not my will, but Thy will be done.” But the thing is, I’ve kept my hands there. I keep rearranging the pieces. I keep trying to work out some kind of purpose for it all. I want it to make sense.

I’ve thought maybe adoption, maybe 2 kids is all we’re meant to have, maybe it’s a nudge to pick up some of the dreams I’d laid aside.

And the thing is, I cannot make beauty out these last 4 miscarriages.

And the thing is, I know there is a dream in my heart for babies I haven’t yet met.

I’ve grappled those deep theological questions: did God cause this?  or does He allow it? Maybe I have some ideas based on Scripture, but it’s like I am attempting to hug a sumo wrestler: this hard theology, I just can’t get my arms around it.

Here’s what I do know: God can use it. God will use this for His Glory. I’ve seen it time and time again when I’ve faced the winter, the bleak, the impossible. And I’ve beheld the miraculous.

“And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose” Romans 8:28.

I believe there is a season for mourning, a cycle of grief, a time to stop and lament what never got to be.

But after that, comes something even harder… entrusting it to God. Placing that loss in His hands, removing your own hands, watching His hands close over it where you can’t see it, and waiting.

And maybe it feels a bit like winter, like barren. You wonder if you can trust Him, if He really loves you. And deep down you struggle with the part where you know you aren’t really worthy.

But spring always comes.

Death precedes resurrection.

I was reading of Jesus’ final hours before His death. He suffered, He bled, He felt the whip and the nails and the thorns. And then from the cross, Jesus cries out, “My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me?” And have I not felt that? Abandoned, cast off, like my worst fears could all come true. Really, I just struggle with believing that God actually loves me.

His final words before He died were surrender. “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” And this is the thing I’ve struggled hard against. That final surrender. It means no longer holding on. And it feels a bit like dying. And you can’t hold on forever because death has a stench, and it will foul your life.

And then they lay Jesus’s body in a tomb. They rolled a stone over the opening—one big enough, heavy enough so as to ensure no one could ever sneak in and fake raising Him from the dead.  Jesus’s body sat in the still dark, in the damp earth… dead.

But we know that isn’t the end of the story. Jesus resurrected. And there was no amount of guards or heavy stones or darkness or death-stink that could hold Him down.

You can’t work out your miracle. You can’t tell God what His glory looks like.

All you can do is hand over your loss, your broken dreams… and release it.

Dear sister, I don’t know what God will make of your broken dreams, the life you lost, the life you’ve been unable to carry. But I do know, perhaps in a way wholly unexpected, perhaps in a way that has always been quietly whispering in your soul… New life will spring up from the ground.

Spring always comes.

How have you seen God do a resurrection-glory kind of miracle in your life?

By Grace,

Amanda Conquers

If you missed the introduction to this series, you can find it HERE.

If you would like to continue reading, here are the rest of the posts in the series:

Season of Mourning

Project Still Hope
What Hope Really Looks Like
What You Need to Know When Fear is Suffocating You
Practical Advice for the Grieving Woman and Those Who Love Her