Beauty for Ashes

I am in a transition time with studies and it is so interesting that the Lord has been showing me different verses on beauty as well as hearing songs that relate to being beautiful in the Lord. This is my prayer and desire for my friends and family who have walked through very difficult times and this is a promise of the Lord too. Here are a couple of verses I have ran into:

"The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;
To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;
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 61:1-3

"So will the king greatly desire your beauty: for he is your Lord; and worship you him." ~ Psalm 45:11

"He has made everything beautiful in his time:..." ~ Ecclesiastes 3:1

Verse 3 in Isaiah has always seemed so overwhelming nearly like the promise was meant for someone else. I never could wrap my mind around how the Lord would take all the broken pieces (ashes) of my life and actually bring beauty. I have been meditating on this promise for some time now and the Lord showed me in Psalm how much He desired my beauty. I realized that He wants to bring that beauty from the ash heap of life so that ultimately He can be glorified! I tend to get in the way but it doesn't take away His desires for me. This Sunday at church in Sunday School we were looking at Ecclesiastes 3. As most of you know it is a list of "there is a time for...." and I came across verse 11 when it says that there is a time for beauty. I never have noticed that before and it really opened my eyes to the fact that it truly is in a process of time that the Lord brings about things. Beauty doesn't come automatically though we are a microwave society that wants it done now. Some things just take time and needs to be slowly cooked in a crock pot and when all you have to work with are ashes, beauty is bound to take a while.

I am not sure if any of you quilt but I did a quilt a few years back for my Grandma. She had given me a lot of quilting scraps that she had left over from when she sewed clothes and made quilts herself. There were all these pre-cut squares, odd shapes of material, etc... I didn't have any idea what to do with them. One day I decided to make a quilt for her with all these leftovers and tap into the bigger pieces when needed. I decided to start out with a design and eventually it would end up all mixed up the farther out I got and wouldn't be a technical design. This was the first time I had ever done anything like this so I wasn't sure what would happen or what it would look like. After I finished it up and I prepared to give it to Grandma for Christmas I was so excited. I ended up really liking it and couldn't hardly wait to give it to her. One of my friends told me she was so amazed at how I made something beautiful out of nothing.

This is the only way that I can relate what the Lord desires to do in us by bringing beauty from the ashes of our lives. All He had to work with in my life was a bunch of scraps and I hope that He makes something beautiful out of nothing in my life. I hope that makes a bit of sense to you!