For almost a year I saw this image in my mind of two massive hands with grains of sand continually pouring and falling through the spaces between the giant God-sized fingers. I speculated what this meant for months. I wondered if this was a picture of the innumerable amounts of precious thoughts God has towards us in Psalm 139:17-18. Or was it a parallel of the finiteness of our life from Genesis 3:19 where God tells Adam, "For dust you are and to dust you shall return." Nothing I could imagine really fit the description of what I saw in my mind. My focus turned aside from the sand and onto the giant hands, and I discovered that the phrase "hand of the Lord" is found 39 times in the Bible referencing many different characteristics of who God is. Throughout the Psalms we are told that His right hand will uphold us, rescue us, lift us up, offer us pleasure and strengthen us. Numerous times the hand of the Lord is described to be "upon us" either to bring us through, empower us, guide us or comfort us. However, I didn't have my personal answer as to why I was seeing His hands until one afternoon when I sat on my daughters bed with a cardboard box containing my mothers ashes.
I wrote Ezekiel 37:4-6 in thick black sharpie on the outside, "Prophesy to these bones and say to them O dry bones hear the word of Lord! Thus says the Lord God to these bones; surely I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live." I opened up the box, removed a smaller black box and lifted out a clear bag of her ashes sealed with a metal band and a an ID tag with her name and information on it. I loosened the metal band off the top and opened the bag. I thought to myself, if God can bring a whole army of dead and dry bones back to life in Ezekiel, then surely he could bring back my mom's cremated ashes. Nothing is impossible to God right? I breathed my own breath into the bag as some abstract form of hope, and ashes blew up into my face clouding my eyes. I felt foolish, I felt weird, and I felt grateful that my husband was asleep across the hall with our two kids so I didn't have a saner person to ask me, "What in the world are you doing?" I continued to observe her ashes and thought about the little pieces of bones and chunks in the powder, and the fiery furnace that it took to cremate her body into this form. Caught in this morbid moment I wondered what it would be like to touch these bones. Curiously I dug my hands into her ashes and lifted them out, and the moment her ashes fell through the cracks in my fingers it was the same picture I had seen of those massive hands. I began to weep so deeply out of my mouth spilled, "Oh God, You are here." He spoke to my spirit saying I am Jehovah-Shama the God who is already there, I am the God who is here! He knew I would find myself in this moment, and He prepared my heart for true lament.
Even with having this sweet moment with the Lord, soon after packing up her ashes neatly as they were before shame came in to tell me, "what a foolish crazy act you just did". I dared not tell anyone I did this, particularly not my therapist in fear that she would type away on her tiny computer in Big Bold capital letters, Stage of Grief, DENIAL! I mean who really thinks their loved one is coming back from a bag of ashes? But the Father did not see it this way, and in the months and year to follow He would comfort my heart showing me scriptures where others lamented and actually rolled in their loved ones ashes or rubbed ashes on their foreheads. He also began to encourage my heart saying, "I'm proud of your faith, that you would even believe that something so obscure could be possible. He didn't condemn me, He said what great faith, and He reminded me of Matthew 19:26 where Jesus looked at them and said, "with man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." Don't be discouraged, keep believing for impossible things. "For nothing will be impossible with God. [Luke 1:37]" In that moment of mourning and grief my breath blown into a bag of dead ashes produced faith in me and created space for a release in my heart to feel what Jesus had already felt before. He sympathized with me. I believe that no one is naturally equipped for things like grief, because we were never created for death or sickness. Those evils came in with the fall of humanity, so no one really knows how they will respond when moments like these happen in life, but I do know that wherever you find yourself, God WILL ALREADY BE THERE...especially in the ashes.
God is always healing and always breathing life back into your dead dreams and broken heart. The Word of God says that the promise for ashes is beauty. God sees no other outcome but beauty, yet as humans we don't often understand that truth. With time and intimacy with Him, He will show us and make life beautiful again. There is always a resurrecting promise in the Word of God that will be produced out of your pain or loss. I know that because Jesus will accomplish what He came to do in Isaiah 61:3 which is to give you a crown of beauty instead of ashes, oil of joy instead of mourning and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. I am learning that I can trust Him with the pieces of my life, because He was there in my greatest tragedy, and He is here feeling experiencing and sitting with me. Imagine your whole life like those tiny grains of sand falling so effortlessly through his massive fingers as you hear the song He's got the whole world in His hands playing in your head. He considers and cares for each detail of your life. From your mothers womb He knew you, and when you shed your body to the ashes He remembers every moment of your earthly life, receiving your spirit into His eternal being. Things this side of eternity aren't always easy, but we are promised over and over that His right hand will uphold us in every season of life. There are not always linear answers to life challenges, the tough stuff is often much more nebulous than any one wants to admit, but you can trust in His hands to handle you with compassionate care. I pray that the hand of the Lord will be upon you wherever you find yourself today. Take a deep breath and know that you are not alone, but you are held in the hands of the Lord.
"who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this. In whose hand is the life of every living thing, And the breath of all mankind."Job 12:9-10
