I was struck on how beautiful the sunsets were when forest fires were burning on Mt. Charleston.
The sun shone through and infused its light through the smoke. The stark contrast between the dark smoke and
the bright sunshine brought out subtle colors in both.
While it is true that the fire burned 25,000 acres and
destroyed six buildings, apparently forest fires have benefits too. According to “How Stuff Works” websites, “Forest
fires are a natural and necessary part of the ecosystem. Even healthy forests
contain dead trees and decaying plant matter; when a fire turns them to ashes,
nutrients return to the soil instead of remaining captive in old vegetation.” Like the beauty of the sun piercing through
the smoke, the benefits of the fires break through from the destruction.
God’s love is like that.
There are events in our lives that seem destructive. Maybe you are living in the dark days where
God’s love does not seem to reach you.
The darkness that surrounds you seems to have no end and the fire of
stress seems to be wreaking havoc in your life.
But it is the darkness of life that helps to set against the
beauty of God’s love. When focused on, it
can light the air around you, bringing out the subtle beauty and depth of life. What seems like destruction can remove what we
think of as important so we can cultivate what is really important.
There is no doubt that this cancer has wreaked destruction
in my life and on my body. I carry the
scars with me every day. My chest looks
like they took a big chunk with an ice cream scoop which essentially they did. I’m not the wife, the mother, the teacher I
would like to be whether that is because of exhaustion or side effects of
chemo.
But if I focus on what God has taught me, on his love and
provision, it colors all that with a subtle brightness that pierces the
darkness. The darkness provides a depth to my life that I wouldn’t have
otherwise. Every day I am learning to
focus on what is important—that my husband, my kids, know that I love them,
that I continue to spread the message of praising God through all of my
circumstances.
In this life there will be fire, destruction, death. But in the ashes there is beauty. It doesn’t happen on its own. Only God
has the power to pierce the darkness with His light, to clear the death and
decay to produce life. Only God has that
power. Will you let him work His glory?
2
Corinthians 1:8-9
New International Version (NIV)
8 We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters,
about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great
pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life
itself. 9 Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of
death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who
raises the dead.