Ashes are the result of a death, a loss of life. Ashes are found where life and vibrancy once was. And ashes are present in everyone's lives. We all experience pain and loss, in various ways throughout our lifetime. Whether it is a broken dream, the physical death of someone we love, the wilting of a once-strong friendship, the loss of the one thing for which we worked hard, the absence of our heart's yearning, or the shift from a familiar season in our lives to one obscure and uncharted -- we all have ashes....sometimes a sprinkle, sometimes handfuls, sometimes bucketfuls. We feel the pain, we cry the tears, we mourn the loss. And this is natural.
I believe it is healthy and natural to let oneself feel these emotions. To face these wounds and grieve them. To cry. To be angry. Hell, to break things if one has to. During 2011, I experienced some losses and faced pain I never knew before, and I didn't know what to do with it. Until I realized that the presence of pain does not equate the absence of beauty. And where one finds beauty, one finds joy.
So where is this joy found? In the ashes themselves. In the very losses we mourn. Because when something dies, it will eventually make way for new life. New relationships. New smiles. New experiences. Until that new life comes, go through the grief and allow yourself to feel it. You'll be okay again.
Ashes are beautiful not because of what they are, but because of what they can become.