Beauty for Ashes
October 17th rolls around every year. And every year on this day, I have no idea what to do. At some point tomorrow I will find myself lost within my thoughts, within my memories and I will wipe away my tears. And at some point those tears will turn to anger and I will sit and stare. I know one day that October Saturday morning won't seem like just yesterday. But it's only been 3 years, and right now it still feels like it happened today.
I'll never forget the phone call that came that morning. I didn't answer it on purpose. I knew it couldn't be good. I knew his sister wouldn't be calling me for no reason and I couldn't bring myself to answer the phone. And when I listened to her voicemail and heard the tone in her voice it confirmed what I already knew. Mark was dead. It took everything in me to call her back that day. I remember sitting in my apartment alone, my hand shaking, trying to get it together enough to find out the details of the inevitable.
Time stops in moments like that. I don't know where it goes. But it slows down, and the whole world revolves slower on it's axis. That Saturday was no different.
You know when someone in your life is battling drugs; when you have sat beside them in rehab, when you have watched them break out in cold sweats and make up reasons why they have to go, that the phone call will come. There is always a phone call. It is either them on the other end asking for help, or someone else calling to say it's too late; but there is always a phone call.
I'll never look at the Grand Canyon the same. I'll never look down on that place without knowing that my friend's remains from this life are buried below. His ashes poured from a helicopter over the canyon stole the hopeless wonder of that place from years before.
At the same time, I'm reminded that God is there, that He is present, as His beauty engulfs all that is below. You can't help but be hopeful even in despair in a place like this; hopeful that God is so much bigger than this life, and this death. There is hope to be found in the broken. Beauty to come from ashes. I watched his ashes pour out over that beautiful place. And as the hot tears rolled down my face and broke the coldness of that day, life was real, and beautiful and broken and alive and dead all in one moment in time.
I won't let the place of his burial steal the beauty and wonder that always amazed and captivated him there. I won't let it steal the beauty that God created. And I won't let his life, lost far too quickly, be in vain.
I won't let his death not change my entire life left on this earth. I refuse to lose my life, because I got lost along the way. October 17th always reminds me of so much. A thousand thoughts racing through my mind. But now, in this moment, I am reminded of God's promise sent out in Isaiah, "to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair." Isaiah 61:3
On this day especially, I know that these are the promises in which I have to choose to dwell. So tomorrow, I will find myself lost in the hope of possibility from this life and the promises in Him along the way.
I'll never forget the phone call that came that morning. I didn't answer it on purpose. I knew it couldn't be good. I knew his sister wouldn't be calling me for no reason and I couldn't bring myself to answer the phone. And when I listened to her voicemail and heard the tone in her voice it confirmed what I already knew. Mark was dead. It took everything in me to call her back that day. I remember sitting in my apartment alone, my hand shaking, trying to get it together enough to find out the details of the inevitable.
Time stops in moments like that. I don't know where it goes. But it slows down, and the whole world revolves slower on it's axis. That Saturday was no different.
You know when someone in your life is battling drugs; when you have sat beside them in rehab, when you have watched them break out in cold sweats and make up reasons why they have to go, that the phone call will come. There is always a phone call. It is either them on the other end asking for help, or someone else calling to say it's too late; but there is always a phone call.
I'll never look at the Grand Canyon the same. I'll never look down on that place without knowing that my friend's remains from this life are buried below. His ashes poured from a helicopter over the canyon stole the hopeless wonder of that place from years before.
At the same time, I'm reminded that God is there, that He is present, as His beauty engulfs all that is below. You can't help but be hopeful even in despair in a place like this; hopeful that God is so much bigger than this life, and this death. There is hope to be found in the broken. Beauty to come from ashes. I watched his ashes pour out over that beautiful place. And as the hot tears rolled down my face and broke the coldness of that day, life was real, and beautiful and broken and alive and dead all in one moment in time.
I won't let his death not change my entire life left on this earth. I refuse to lose my life, because I got lost along the way. October 17th always reminds me of so much. A thousand thoughts racing through my mind. But now, in this moment, I am reminded of God's promise sent out in Isaiah, "to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair." Isaiah 61:3
On this day especially, I know that these are the promises in which I have to choose to dwell. So tomorrow, I will find myself lost in the hope of possibility from this life and the promises in Him along the way.
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