Out Of The Ashes

It was the day the world went wrong. A moment so small in time and yet so vast in impact that it split life into two parts: before and after.

A year and a half ago, in the blink of an eye, our life changed when Tim collapsed. I can still hear the sound of my own voice screaming until it was hoarse, the sound of desperation breaking out of me with no thought or restraint. Tears blurred my vision as I watched everything I thought was steady, secure, and whole come crashing down in front of me.

It’s strange how a single moment can undo the fabric of everything you thought you knew. The plans, the certainties, the ordinary rhythm of daily life—gone in an instant. In its place, panic surged through my body, raw and relentless. But panic, I’ve learned, doesn’t last forever. Eventually, it slows, and what remains is pain.

Slowly, panic turns to pain. And then you wake up to the reality of what remains. The pieces. The fragments. The ashes.

For a year and a half, I’ve been sifting through those ashes. Some days, the grief feels unbearable—as if the weight of loss is too heavy for one heart to hold. I grieve not only for the health Tim lost, but for the simple joys we once took for granted: carefree laughter, spontaneous plans, the easy peace of a life unmarked by illness. Those things now feel fragile, as if they belong to someone else’s story.

And yet—ashes are not the end.

I think of the prophet Isaiah’s words: that God gives beauty for ashes, joy for mourning, a garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness (Isaiah 61:3). When I first read that, I imagined ashes as something final—like a grave, the end of all things. But now, walking through this year and a half of brokenness, I see it differently. Ashes are not the end of the story. They are what remains when everything unnecessary has burned away. They are the soil in which God plants new beginnings.

And that is what this season has been—a long, aching, refining fire. A season of grieving what was lost, but also of learning that hope can rise even here.

In the sleepless nights, when my heart is restless and weary, I’ve felt the whisper of Jesus: I am here. I will meet you here. In the moments when fear threatened to consume me, I’ve seen glimpses of His strength—sometimes in Tim’s resilience, sometimes in my own survival, sometimes in the simple mercies that arrive just when we need them.

This year and a half has been an unraveling, yes—but also a remaking.

I’ve learned what it means to hold on to hope when every outward circumstance tries to pry it from my hands. I’ve learned that love grows deeper in the valleys, that faith takes root in the ashes, that joy—though often quiet—still finds a way to surface.

It has not been easy. There have been days when I felt my voice was gone, when prayer was nothing but tears. There have been days when the weight of “what ifs” and “why us” pressed down so hard that I could hardly breathe. But through it all, one truth has carried me: Jesus is not only the God of the mountaintop—He is the God who kneels down into the rubble with us.

He does not wait for the ashes to be swept away. He meets us in them. And in His hands, ashes are never wasted. They become the very place where new life begins.

So even now, even here, I choose to believe that the story is not over. What came crashing down a year and a half ago was not the end of us—it was the beginning of a new journey. One I never would have chosen, but one in which God’s faithfulness has proven itself again and again.

And though the pain is real, so is the promise: out of the ashes, beauty will rise. Out of the grief, hope will bloom. Out of the brokenness, a new strength will be born.

Because this is who He is: the One who meets us at the bottom, who walks with us in the dark, who carries us when we cannot stand, and who brings life out of what feels lifeless.

So yes, I still feel the ache of that day. I still carry the weight of what changed. But I also carry this: a stubborn, living hope that refuses to die. The hope that whispers to me in the quiet: spring is coming.

And when it does, I know we will look back at the ashes and see not only loss, but the miracle of what God grew in the soil of our grief.