Ash.
Ash is the substance of something burned up. Flame and oxygen consuming it until it is nothing but flaky, black and grey that dissipates when touched.
Motherhood feels like an ash field for me. The loss, the pain, the despair of hopes built and burned. My own childhood emptiness stains my gripped hands. Missed softball games, talent shows, and theatre plays as I peeked through the curtain to see an empty seat.
Ash.
Drips of tears turn the ash into moistened mud. Can God make something from this clay?
Hoping for lessons of womanhood, but left to learn how to boil water alone.
Ash.
Wanting a mom to help me with my own children, but left to dole them out to substitutes.
Ash.
My children look at me as if what I have to offer them will bring them life. But all I was given was ash. At least, that’s all I can see.
Ash. Burned substance when dripped with water, turns to clay.
Is God wanting to make something?
I am but ash. From dust I came and to dust I will return. So who am I to think I am owed anything? Even my fingers I use to type are ash breathed by God into form.
Mom did so much for me, but in the places of her brokenness, she painted my soul with ash.
I want to paint with wildflowers of vibrant colors instead of ash on hearts.
I fear I have burned up parts of my children’s hearts in my fear of failure without an image of what motherhood should be. More tears drip into the ash to form more clay the Lord might have His way with.
If motherhood is an ash field, maybe it is a promise. Maybe if I allow God to consume all of me in every moment—like Jesus allowing the bleeding women to touch his cloak or the demoniacs to be freed by his power—emptying himself in totality on Calvary—He will form something I was never meant to make—because He is wanting to make something with me. Maybe my ash field is motherhood because that is what motherhood is supposed to be. The more I allow myself the space of God’a grace—the more righteous I become.
Ashes are exchanged for beauty, I thought. But now I am wondering if ashes are necessary for beauty. To die. Be consumed. Letting go of all rights to know or even be known. If God is my life, then it is in His death that I live. Maybe all of life is the road to Calvary as we wait for our ash to change in a twinkling into resurrected bodies. United. Free from death.
I can still enjoy and have joy. But I am no longer owed anything. I can see what was lost—without it owning me. And because I do not know what forms He will shape with the ash of my life, I am free from the worry of it.
I want to let the wind blow me where He will and for this season of life, it is the muddy, forming of my children’s hearts. And all I have to offer is death to myself. God, please make something.
