Job lost everything…he questioned God, he questioned his friends, he questioned everything not knowing that God had allowed the losing of all the things to demonstrate his purity and willingness to serve the Lord despite the circumstances and loss of it all.
Job was taken to the crucible of tragedy and came through it acknowledging God.
I have declared recently that I sit on a pile of ash and ruin and in my imagination that is exactly what I see, me sitting atop a soot and ash pile, unworthy, dirty, broken, exposed and humiliated. For weeks I’ve tried to figure out exactly how beauty comes from ashes…ashes make soap..maybe something to do with cleaning but I am struggling to make that work in my mind.
“Ashes are good for?…Reminder, do a Google search and find positive uses for ashes.” Google says: “Soil improvement, making soap (I knew that one) and mild abrasive cleaning.”
Surely there is something better, more beautiful?
Work, home, worsening of already terrible life circumstances, conflict, and confusion. I feel stretched and torn, ripped to shreds and still I sit atop the ash heap hoping that some good thing can come of this ugly mess.
I persist in the things I know are good, know are right and have come to understand are the only lasting and truly decent things this world has to offer; those are the things of Christ. I go to church, CBS, continue to encourage and to love those around me, I point to truth and I read the Word per the usual, as part of the routine.
Chronologically I am in Job, the irony of it all makes me chuckle, I’ve often thought at some point God had to’ve said, “Have you considered my servant, Amy Martin?”
Back in the early morning hours of February 1st, February-a historically horrible month. February-the month I dread most, February short in its duration, yet catastrophic in its devastation.
When February was just a few hours old I completed my unfinished January reading. I was exhausted, behind, a day of work, bitter cold, achy eyes and more shedding of tears forced me to abandon my reading just prior to bed. I took up January 31st reading early, I’ve been in Job, lived like Job, was finishing up Job when I began to read.
“Then Job answered the Lord and said: “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. ‘Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you make it known to me.’ I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”
Job 42:1-6
The last line hit me square between the eyes: there Job sat and what of all things brought about his repentant heart? Dust and ashes! Well they were a sign of his repentant heart, I reckon but the answer had been given to me.
What good can come from ash and ruin? Repentance, change, reconciliation to God and restoration of relationship. In His kindness the Lord led me to a place of understanding and revelation right atop the ash heap.
Ash, the catalyst for the cleansing of the heart.
Post Script…I wrote this fast and furiously in the wee hours of the morning, in early February. I wrote it using my cellphone, a google doc, and my One Year Chronological Bible, my one and only sidekick, unless of course you count the box of Dolla’ Store tissues that I keep bedside in the event there is the shedding of tears, a nearly daily occurrence, but like Job the Lord has answered me with the declaration of Who He is, in His kindness He is revealing to me the very fact that it is indeed His kindness that brings us to repentance and cleanliness.
I scrolled through my phone and saw the photo taken the previous Tuesday.
I looked at the photo of the two women. One of them I know well, the other not so much.
The lighter haired, shorter one, a bit pudgy around the middle, with blue eyes that are wide open windows to my very soul, left puffy from a day spent in tears. The other woman, a Writer whom until moments before I had only seen in pictures.
I had been waiting in line to meet her, but more specifically so she could sign the books I had brought with me. I had come alone. My very first date with myself.
I had to make myself do it.
Just a few minutes before I had met two other ladies. We chatted in line while each waiting for our turn to meet the Writer. Janice and Whitney were their names, I introduced myself to them first. I introduced them to one another. They were ideal book fans, and spoke of her writings and reputation. I had little to offer. We inched forward in line.
It was my turn, I handed the dark haired Writer my small stack of books. Books that she had written and that I had read and counted as life savers in some of my most difficult days.
None more difficult than the last, or the current one.
My scribblings and notes littered the pages, a random five-dollar bill shoved in the cover of one of them fell in her direction. She moved her hands over my scribblings and said, “I love this.” She recognized, I reckon, that I had made her books my very own.
The top two books she signed without question, she spoke pleasantries and asked me how I was doing. I squeaked out a reply. She asked my name, I said what I always say. “Amy Martin.” She looked puzzled so I clarified. “Amy.” She had written my first name with a big scripted handwriting. I wondered how many times she’d written my same name in books that bore her own name on the cover.
I awkwardly thanked her for signing the books. When she pointed out the magazine in my hand to her cohort, I offered her the free magazine with her picture on the front, but she declined.
She closed the top two books, their messages sealed, I had averted my gaze so that the inscriptions would be a surprise. I wanted to wait and read them later on. She saw the smallest one, I had placed it deliberately on the bottom of the stack. I had deliberately been hiding it for nearly the entire eleven weeks it had been in my possession.
The book’s title felt like a jack-in-box that would burst out at any random time scaring the heck out of me. Once that clown was out he swayed back and forth taunting me with what the revelation of himself meant to me and for me.
The book had been a gift. To: Me From: Me.
Merry Christmas Eve.
“Is this for you?” She had said, I couldn’t make my vocal cords work so I nodded in the affirmative. For the umpteenth time that Tuesday tears began to well up within my eyes. She understood, she knew, for she had written that book from her very own similar journey.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. The tears fell again.
I couldn’t have seen what she was writing even if I hadn’t have averted my gaze. She handed the stack back to me, the smallest and bottommost book now on the top of the heap. I thanked her and began cramming my books back into my bag. For weeks I had been hiding it, if it weren’t for its very soothing pastels across the front, I would have sworn that the Jack-in-a-box book shone like a scarlet letter in my personal library.
A banner flying over me of brokenness, bewilderment and bondage.
“Do you want to take a picture?” I shook my head and said, “No, I’m not really a good picture taker,” in the seconds it took me to formulate my sentence she was standing on her feet. I fumbled with my phone. The new one I had to get, I had to exchange my old simple phone, the “baby phone” as I called it, the one I loved and was used to surrendered for this bulky monstrosity of gigabytes, screens, apps and mass confusion.
So much surrendering.
I managed to open the camera feature, the phone just one more new thing, new way, new and unchartered waters in a sea of heartbreak. The Writer pulled me in close, I did my best to smile. She hugged me, photo snapped and saved in digital format in my camera roll.
My turn was over.
I walked outside for fresh air, soon I saw Whitney and Janice again. A beautiful blonde woman sat on an adjacent bench to my left. Something in me told me we had to have similar stories, she too held the Jack-in-the Box-Scarlet-Letter Book.
She spoke in our direction, we all chatted again, I asked her her name. “Crystal” she had said. I introduced myself, AMy Martin, Whitney and Janice to Crystal. Janice said she was impressed with my name remembering skills. I was too honestly. I confided in Janice that normally I struggle to remember names. My sister can remember names like nobody’s business, in this we are not the same.
I asked Crystal where she lived, come to find out she and Whitney lived in the same neighborhood, they had much in common and their conversation flourished. I giggled, The doors to the main speaking event opened, we said good-byes and each made our way in looking for our own separately purchased individual seats.
I had chosen my seat purposefully in the dark-thirty hours of the day I bought it. An aisle seat, down an exit row in the event the tears were so overwhelming I should need to make a quick getaway. I made my way to my seat and who should be seated in front of me? Whitney and her new found neighbor Crystal. They became even better acquainted.
I wondered what would have happened had I not been the one to formally introduce these previously unknown neighbors and newfound friends? What if I hadn’t gone on a date with myself? What if I had chickened out like I really wanted to just mere moments before I walked through the door? I had unknowingly been the catalyst for the gift of friendship between two what likely would have remained strangers.
I asked the Lord on the way home if that is what this season is for? If this is the why behind so much of what I do not nor can I understand. I asked Him if His plan is to use this season of yet to be named full of its moments of surrender, doing hard and previously unknown things. Is this obedience to Him meant to bring blessing not just to myself but to others as well?
I landed on perhaps. Perhaps so.
When I arrived home, a few hours past my get ready for bed-time, I opened the books one at a time to read their signed inscriptions. They were kind encouraging words and exhortations. I saved the smallest for last. It made me weep.
I rubbed my hand over the cover, The gift for Me from Me, purchased in haste and through tears at the Hobby Lobby in the hustle and bustle this past Christmas Eve. I had just gone through the single most traumatic time in my life. My body still throbbed and was numb all at the same time. My mind spinning and searching every moment of the day. I had gone in the familiar craft store because I knew they would likely have a Martin Family Christmas tradition that I had failed up until that point to purchase, Christmas Crackers. They had them, I grabbed them and made my way to the checkout.
As I stood in the line to checkout, my gaze fell to the books stationed at the front of the store, my gaze can always find its way to the books. It was at that point I saw it, “Surviving an Unwanted Divorce” by Lysa Terkeurst. If there were ever a book title that could make sense of all the nonsense in my spinning mind maybe it was this one.
God alone knew I had just asked myself, “How am I ever going to survive this?” The week’s events had brought me to a place I had not, did not and was not wanting to be. Facing something I never wanted, a divorce. I could hardly say the word, much less acknowledge and accept what it meant for my marriage.
Even now, at this point, I am struggling to write the word, to attach it to myself, d–i-v-o-r-c-e spelled out on a backlit screen with a twelve-point font in front of my face.
To: Me, From: Me. Merry Christmas Eve.
I began reading it almost immediately. Pen in hand, notes in the margin, notes on the sticky notes crammed on the side, book jacket removed so no one knew what I was reading lest I be asked about my…divorce…about the death of my marriage. I saw it coming, and I didn’t see it coming. I most certainly didn’t see how it would finally be put to death coming.
I was left in absolute shock, some days I still am, but the farther I get from Christmas Eve the more I am coming to realize there are some things that I may never be able to understand, to reconcile, to make heads or tails of, that may forever remain a mystery to me.
I am choosing to find the gifts in all of it. The gifts began long before Christmas Eve and have steadily been making their way to me. It took a little while for my vision to clear but as it has I felt like maybe I should share the gifts I have given, the gifts I had been given, the gifts I have surrendered, the gifts I have yet to receive. Share the gifts through my gift of words from The Word.
To: Me, From: Me. To: Me, From: You. To You, From: Me and To: Us, From: The King.
