Ashes

Quote of the day.
"It is okay to sit in the ashes. Sometimes you have to sit for a while in order to move forward."

My campus minister said this to me today.

So what does that mean to sit in the ashes? It means that everything around you has (metaphorically) burned to the ground. There is nothing left. Things have gone past being 'broken', because sometimes broken can be fixed. Sitting in the ashes is pain and hurt. Its loss and mourning, death and rejection, anger, fear, loneliness and tears. Its long term. Sitting in the ashes is an ache in your heart that makes it hurt to breath.

Job set in the ashes a lot. He lost everything, his animals, his servants, and his family. Gone. Then as he was mourning his loss, he had to defend himself and God (who he was majorly questioning) to his friends. Read the first 20 or so chapters of Job. It sucks. None of it is fair. If you want a picture of what it means to sit in the ashes, Job is it.

I don't like sitting in the ashes. It means I am allowing myself to be filled with pain and experiencing hurt. I don't like that...no one likes that! I also don't like waiting. I don't like the idea that I have to sit, be still and wait in order to move forward. I want to be over it now! But I'm going to have to sit in the ashes for a while.

I feel like I have to have everything together. Because I'm in ministry or a senior, or a friend, or a (insert title here) I have to have everything together. That I shouldn't sit in the ashes. That idea comes partly from my own unwillingness to be broken and also from trying to fit into some mold or idea people have for me. And its wrong! I am allowed to sit in the ashes...for a while. Its not going to be pretty, but life isn't always pretty. And I don't  always have to have it together.

I keep telling myself I will one day get up out of the ashes. I think of HP and the chamber of secrets (yes...I'm making a HP reference here.) The Phoenix that was reborn out of the ashes. Something beautiful will come from this. Just because I am sitting in the ashes doesn't mean my life is over. This particular part is, but something will come from it. Something that is stronger and better!

I don't believe a single word in that last paragraph. I don't believe that I will ever find the strength to get up. I KNOW in my head its true, but I don't believe it in my heart. But I am still telling myself that something will be reborn from this....even if I don't believe it, I have to keep saying it.