BEAUTY FOR ASHES
Hi, Have you met me? I used to be a butterfly for a time there, fluttering about high above my circumstances. I was joyful and beyond content managing my one yoga website and one facebook account.
Then I met the Instagram monster and I became the ugly caterpillar clinging to the dirt and grime of the social media world. Three instagram accounts, two facebook pages later, overworked with a terrible gnawing feeling of unworthines, I so needed that next instagram like and that next instagram follower to follow me to get my fix. Although I continued in prayer, silly me was going too fast to listen. God provided me solutions along the way, yet I couldn’t part with letting go of my social media addictions. The monster was growing ugly and it was me!
The monster grew heavier as time went on and took more and more from me. It was more difficult to change and easier to remain the same. Eventually, everything I created during this time turned to ashes but I held tightly to the ashes hoping one day they might turn to gold, Naturally, over time my monster even chowed them down most of the ashes too which left me with a great sense of failure and I felt dirty and cold.
One day, I noticed there was a teeny tiny flame still lit in all the rubble. I started walking toward the flame and guess what? It grew. Each passing day I refused to feed my monster it flickered brighter and grew stronger empowering me to get up and walk closer to it. And guess what? I’m growing lighter and brighter and rising up from the dirt to where I belong with each passing day!
Today, this monster is still lurking. She’s watching how I’m doing but guess what? I’m learning how not to feed her. Recently, I noticed a flowering bush blooming in my front yard after fifteen years of lifelessness. Every spring I’d try to help it grow by pulling up massive vines growing all around it. However, it remained lifeless in the dirt for fifteen long summers. This summer has been unusally dry. All the usual flowers that bloom have already died. Yet, this bush has come back to life and is flourishing after fifteen dead years! I believe it’s my hope and my message from my Heavenly Father. He’s showing me that He can take what’s lifeless and dead and easily breathe new life into it. That He is able and can create beauty in the most unlikely places. And that we can trade our ashes anytime for He can and He is willing and able to make something beautiful from them!
This is my story. My story of how I gave my Heavenly Father my dead dull ashes and He is breathing new life into them. A journey that’s just begun here on pennyoliver.me I pray that you will join me!