Beauty from Ashes

Burnt Out.

You hear stories of family's homes that catch on fire: a forgotten candle, an electrical blip, the stove that was left on.

Family photos, gone. The playroom where house, tag, Monopoly and Lego was played, gone. The dining room where hundreds of family meals were shared, gone. The backyard and driveway where skills like riding a bike, building a campfire, mastering a backflip on the trampoline, gone.

ASHES.

Thick, deeps, unforgiving, irreversible ashes.

Sometimes our lives resemble that burnt property: passions dissolved, hopes dashed, compassion turned to apathy, visions deflated, energies emptied.

Ashes.

Burnt out.

Lupins.

They are a wildflower. Often purple.

They grow from ashes.

They don't need Grade A soil with all the nutrients. They use ashes to spur beautiful growth.

They are known as 'invasive' - meaning they see no boundaries as to where to grow. They take over meadows, roadsides, creeksides. Their presence is impossible to ignore. And they smell pretty.

God raises growth from the ashes.

And not just growth, growth that is beautiful.

Growth that overtakes the previously burnt land.

Growth that grows naturally.

Growth that heals the wounds.

Growth that gives hope.

Growth that inspires.

Growth that is impossible to ignore.

Even though much is lost, and the terrain is desolate, we can TRUST in the lupins, we can trust that God brings life from the ashes, and beauty from the broken.