This weekend I will be traveling to my home city of Charlotte, NC to minister at my home church Beauty for Ashes Ministry pastored by my mother, Pastor Rosa Marion. It is my mother’s 2nd Pastoral Anniversary. She has been an ordained Pastor for 5 years. But her work in ministry started well before. My mother accepted Christ when I was 9 months old and she has been saved all 44 years of my life. I have never known her to do anything else but serve the Kingdom of God. As I have been preparing my sermon for Sunday I have been reflecting over the 44 years and I can unequivocally say she has received Beauty for her Ashes!

If you know the story of The Sanctuary you know that I had two very influential people in my life pass away four months apart. One was my Father and the other my maternal Aunt. As a result of her passing, a firestorm broke loose on the maternal side of my family. Once the smoke cleared there were so many casualties, one, being my mother. And as the fire was smoldering, the ashes of fear, anger, mourning for the loss of relationships, and despair were floating amongst the ruble. She was left without a job and many friends and family were gone. Many questioned her integrity and motives. Not only was she dealing with sorrow and grief from losing her only sister and best friend, but she was also dealing with the loss of all she had known for over 25 years. She was in such a dark place. She had to deal with some very hard truths in her life. My sister and I were heavy with so many feelings. To us it seemed as though her life was in ruins and ashes, however, to God He was ready to crown her with beauty.

Isaiah 61:3 says,
"To console those who mourn in Zion,
To give them beauty for ashes,
The oil of joy for mourning,
The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;
That they may be called trees of righteousness,
The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.”

I'm sure we have all heard the term beauty for ashes. Do we truly understand what beauty means? The literal meaning of the Hebrew word is an ornament, tiara, or turban. Some translations use the term "crown". That's what God has done for us. Our gracious God sent His son to die on the cross, he exchanged His beauty for the ashes of our broken lives. He came for the poor… the afflicted… the broken-hearted… the captive, to give us a beautiful crown! Ashes in Scripture are a symbol of mourning and repentance.

I am sure many of us have a bonfire going on in our lives and we are mourning and doing some repenting. But His Word says that He will take our mourning and repentance and give us a crown. He will then replace the bitterness and sorrow with oil of joy. Psalm 23:5 says, "Thou prepares a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anoints my head with oil; my cup runneth over." This speaks of God anointing the head with oil. Oil of joy has reference to joy of the heart. Oil represents the kind, sweet, comforting words that give encouragement and new hope to the heart of the wounded. It refers to the healing and protective power and strengthening power of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God.

He also promised a garment of praise. This describes the radiance, the happiness, and the sweetness that fill the heart and the life of the child of God who loves the things of God, and lives for the glory of God. This garment is entirely from heaven. The Lord wants to replace our spirit of heaviness with praise.

The "Trees of righteousness" and "Planting" He spoke of, is when the people of God are restored, and are again growing and fruitful.

Isaiah 61:3 is relevant for today as it is God's desire to replace the ashes of loss, bitterness, and sorrow with the beauty of joy, new hope, healing, and strength to the heart. God wants His Holy Spirit and His Word to comfort our heavy spirits. With God's help, we can be restored, move forward with our lives, and again become fruitful and productive. I know this to be true, because I have seen my mother, Pastor Rosa Marion, take every last ash and give it to God and He has graced her with beauty. She birthed "Beauty For Ashes Ministry." This ministry has provided food, shelter, clothes to a underserved part of Charlotte. But most importantly she planted, hope, love and kindness into a community that has shown her that labor is not in vain. The "trees of her righteousness" and "planting" has brought forth astounding testimonies of those who have come under her care. And she rejoices with each of them as she takes their transformation personal. I can testify that she has been an example of a servant committed and sold out to the cause of the King. I am witnessing her experience joy, strength, gladness and peace on a whole new level. You see, there were some things that she needed to deal with within herself and the fire the adversary thought would ruin her brought transformation, refinement and liberty!

I want you to know that this just can't happen for my mother, it can happen for you. If you are in a bad place and feel all burned up, your ashes of a broken life are redeemable for something more beautiful than can be described. In those times of trouble or despair, turn to the one who loves you, and will always be there for you. Even when you bring an offering of ashes that you think are worthless, He sees you as worth it. Why? He loves you, unconditional. So today, ask God to give you a new song - a song of praise and the garment of praise.

We are halfway done with another year and 2018 has been filled with many ebbs and flows, so much that we have gotten sea sick. Some of us have even said that we are getting out of the boat. We are at the point of giving up and throwing in the proverbial towel. We are one-second away from throwing down the bloodstain banner and retreating back to our comfortable hiding place. We know that we should keep moving but we don’t know because our weariness has gotten the best of us. Our staying power, the capacity to withstand the trials of this life is just not there.

In the past I had given up many of times. I was quick to make excuses when it came to giving up on my dreams and desires. I allowed the demons of stress, worry, inadequacy, and fear of failure to weigh me down and render me completely ineffective.  My thoughts became larger than me and I would fall victim to them. I learned to stop giving in and to continue to fight the good fight with a persistent faith. However recently, as I was dealing with some hard decisions and was feeling pained, stressed and torn about what direction to take in some personal areas of my life, thoughts of sitting out this race creeped in my mind. And as I was praying, questioning my Father about my race being so hard and justifying my "give up to do something less challenging" plan I heard, "Are You Finished or Are You Done?" At that moment I realized just how close I was to falling into that same destructive cycle.  
 
It is clear if we give up in this amazing race of life and take the course of least resistance we will be defeated and not experience the rewards of the well laid out race our Father has for us! That was a pattern that I knew very well. I always became discouraged when it seemed like time and chance was happening at an alarming rate and I would through in the towel and miss myreward. Ecclesiastes 9:11 says that:
 
Again, I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all.”

King Solomon, the author of Ecclesiastes puts his powers of wisdom to work to examine the human experience and assess the human situation. His perspective is limited to what happens "under the sun." It is a carnal view. He considers life as he has experienced, and he observed it between the horizons of birth and death -- life within the boundaries of this world. So, what does Solomon mean? How could the fastest runner not win the race? How could the strongest man not be victorious in battle? Are we all subject to fate? Solomon was saying it isn’t always the strongest guy or the fastest guy that wins in life. We have seen those whom everybody thought were a cinch to win or achieve but was unable to fulfill their dreams. Time and chance happened. Time in this verse means "opportunity” and chance suggests "occurrence" or "incident.” What this verse is saying is that we all have the opportunity to make something of our lives, but eventually; there are elements of circumstance that have to fall together even before someone with great abilities can accomplish his or her goals. But as Solomon stated, things don’t always work that way, despite if you are a believer or not, we all are subject to things not coming together and falling apart and nothing is guaranteed to us but death in this world.

Many of us have had experiences that confirm the truth of this verse. All our carefully laid plans have fallen apart; all our dreams that we had in some particular area of life crumbled, and we could not understand why. We had to learn, as this text says, the race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong. The Word of God clearly acknowledges that men, even those seemingly well-deserving, will be met with unforeseen, chance setbacks, including death! This may not seem just. It may be worrisome to contemplate and very painful to experience, but we are warned through Solomon that such things will occur. Such possibilities must be part of our thinking if we are going to face the trials of life in a mature manner that will glorify our Father in heaven.

However, the illusion that the society presses upon us all the time is that we can handle our life by our choices. It's your life! You can live it the way you please. We’ve been taught and conditioned to think that if you want to succeed you have to compete and be aggressive, get up earlier, go to bed later, put in more hours, do unto them before they do unto you. But God says it cannot be done that way. Often it will seem that time and chance plays a bigger part in our lives than God’s providence and sovereignty.  But that is not so as God knows the plan for our lives. 
 
God has a plan that is divine, and He is always working in our lives. It may not seem like it sometimes, but we must not be fooled to think that we are in control of our lives. We must realize that His plan will lead us to a purposeful and meaningful life if we allow Him take complete control of our life and our will. This is not to say that we will not encounter some bumps and have some bruises from the struggles, and things will always work out. Life will not be perfect.  But if we have faith in the master plan He has created for us and trust that He is divinely orchestrating everything in our life; all those storms, mistakes, bad decisions, good decisions are going to work for our good. But for it to work, we have to keep moving, building endurance. Romans 5:3-4 says, “More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.”  Even though I wanted to give up, I did not as I remembered. If we continue to endure as good soldiers, never giving up, reverencing God and honoring His commandments while fighting the enemy with a faith-based consistency and persistency we will be delivered to receive our just reward in the end! 

So, are you finished worrying, stressing, complaining and being in fear? Are you done crying over the past, doubting your abilities, not trusting His plan, and feeling frustrated because you don't see the fruit from your labor?

If so, let’s make notes of the GAME PLAN to get you to the finish line of faith!

• Remember God knows the divine plan…make sure you are communicating with him to get a clue: (Ecclesiastes 9:11 )
• Work past the pain of past and present hurts: (Acts 20:24)
• Get rid of what holds you back: (Hebrews 12:1)
• Don’t look back: (Philippians 3:14)
• Run to win: (1 Corinthians 9:24-25).
• Remember the end goal: (Matthew 24:13)

We’ve all had our share of storms in life and here lately it seems as though everyone I know is experiencing some type of storm. And what’s so ironic is that right now one of the largest hurricanes this season is hitting the coast of my home state of North Carolina. Hurricane Florence is causing many to flee their homes or get prepared for a Category 2 storm. Meteorologist are predicting heavy rains and billowing winds and if we look at our lives, some of us can say that we are navigating through some pretty heavy rains and being tossed about and battered by the hollowing wind, surging waves, and torrential rains ourselves.

I know in the month of August for us it felt as though we were in the eye of a hurricane. We had the moment of sunshine before the rain but we looked up and suddenly we found ourselves weathering a life shifting storm. The blankets of rain battered us making it look as though there was no end in sight. You ask yourself how did we end up in this midst of this storm if we heard and headed the voice we knew to be God’s? In the midst of battling the storm I had a real conversation with my Father, God. I asked Him, “I have done all you have instructed me to do with a resolute faithfulness, what am I supposed to do in the midst of this storm. I am so overwhelmed” His answer,  “Lean on the Rock. “

Life is full of situations that can overwhelm us. First of all, let us look at how the dictionary defines the word “overwhelm:”to overcome completely in mind or feeling: overwhelmed by remorse; to overpower or overcome, esp. with superior forces; destroy; crush to cover or bury beneath a mass of something, as floodwaters, debris, or an avalanche; submerge; to overthrow.Have you ever felt any of these things? I have. And we are not the only ones that have felt overwhelmed. We can look in the scriptures at David, a man after God's own heart. Yes, even godly people like David experienced times in their lives when they lacked courage, motivation, or was fearful and had a general lack of strength. We can find his cry in Psalms. It reads:

“From the ends of the earth, I cry to you for help when my heart is overwhelmed. Lead me to the towering rock of safety, for you are my safe refuge, a fortress where my enemies cannot reach me. Let me live forever in your sanctuary, safe beneath the shelter of your wings!” Psalm 61:2-4 (NIV)

David needed a rock of protection, one that was higher than his troubles, a divine protection. He was physically and emotionally drained, so he cried out to the "rock that is higher than I," knowing this was a place of safety with God. David was not literally at the end of the earth, but he was in a place where safety and deliverance seemed obscure.

Anyone feeling overwhelmed today? I call you to remember the Father’s invitation to call to Him when times get rough and rocky, cold and dark.  The next time you’re at the end of your rope in the marriage, the job, or your circumstances seem to be swallowing you up, and life is overwhelming you, be sure to run to the Rock you find in prayer. No amount of wishing and hoping and positive thinking will rescue you, you must cling to the rock through these stormy days and He will grant you peace. When you feel overwhelmed, when you begin to feel hopeless, when you lose heart, cry out to the Lord. Remind yourself that the God you serve is a mighty God. He will protect you. He will keep you safe. And He will deliver you. Always! We’ve all felt overwhelmed and hopeless at one time or another. But it is not okay to continue feeling that way – not when Almighty God is your Father and His Eye is in the storm. He promised to see us through the storm! If you cling to the Rock, you will be on top of your problems and see your circumstances from a far different perspective as I did.

The storm was designed to draw me to stand on the Rock who is higher than I. And from that vantage point I can see very clearly, He is our Rock, our Strong Tower, our Safe Refuge from the storms of life.