Beauty for Ashes
When God Plants Flowers in the Soil of Our Grief
There are seasons when life feels scorched. Loss leaves us with ashes in our hands, and no matter how we sift through them, we cannot rebuild what once was. Scripture often uses ashes to represent grief, mourning, even repentance—the end of human strength. Yet the Lord promises something staggering in Isaiah 61: “to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit.”
This is not the promise of comfort alone. It is the promise of transformation.
God’s Pattern of Redemption
Throughout the Bible, we see this pattern again and again. Joseph was betrayed by his brothers, enslaved, and imprisoned. Yet he could later look back and say, “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive” (Genesis 50:20). What others meant to destroy became the very means of salvation.
Paul writes the same truth in Romans 8:28—that God works all things together for good for those who love Him. Not all things are good, but in His hands, even tragedy becomes the soil where His purposes grow.
Rahab tied a scarlet cord in her window as Jericho fell, and by faith, she and her family were saved. That scarlet thread winds its way through Scripture, pointing to the cross, where what looked like the ultimate defeat became the source of eternal life.
And in Acts 16, Paul and Silas sang hymns in a prison cell. Their bodies were bruised and chained, yet their worship shook the very foundations of the jail and opened the doors. Praise rose from ashes—and freedom followed.
Flowers in the Ashes
Isaiah’s prophecy is not abstract. It is happening even now. In recent days, I’ve read testimonies of people stirred toward faith in the midst of tragedy—individuals saying they want to return to church, families talking about God in new ways, hearts opening to Christ. Even Erika Kirk testified that she has already heard stories of people choosing to seek God through deep loss. These are glimpses of the promise: beauty from ashes, flowers rising where we expected only ruin.
The enemy means these moments for evil—to silence voices that stand for God’s Word, to discourage believers, to plant fear in those who remain. But God is already using them for good. The flowers are sprouting from the ashes.
A Word for Us Today
Maybe your ashes look different—grief you can’t shake, regrets you wish you could rewrite, or years that feel wasted. The promise of Isaiah 61 is not that God erases the ashes but that He plants something new in them. He makes oaks of righteousness from burned-out ground.
Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 1:3–4 that God comforts us so that we can comfort others with the same comfort we have received. Your story, surrendered into His hands, may become the very testimony someone else needs to hear.
Ashes are not the end of the story. They are the beginning of God’s planting, the soil of His glory.
Want to GO DEEPER?
In this episode of Lyric & Letter, I walk through Phil Wickham’s song “Flowers” alongside Isaiah 61, Genesis 50, Romans 8, Acts 16, and more. In this weeks devotional, we trace the biblical pattern of God’s redeeming work and reflect on how He is even now bringing beauty from ashes.
