Beauty For Ashes

Last Thursday, as most of you who read this are well aware, fires raged in Montecito. And for all of that night, and the few days that followed, a wide mix of emotions swirled around our community. Mostly, at first, fear and disbelief. Thursday night, as I was glued to the local news coverage of the fire, I watched as this place I've come to call home was being swallowed in fire. Driving back from L.A. Thursday night, I could see my town burning from 40 miles away, and was amazed and terrified at what I saw when I got closer. Flames, large and visible on the riviera, an ominous ring of fire creeping toward people's homes, and ash falling like snow on my windshield. Westmont College, my college, the home that nurtured and challenged and fed and supported me for so many years, being burned. The neighborhoods surrounding, where I'd walked, run, driven countless miles, also on fire. And the homes of the professors that are so much of what makes Westmont so special, burning as well.

Most of us have, at this point, shared our own perspectives, experiences and personal connections to the current tragic state of this Montecito community. Most of us living here know at least a handful of people, of families, who lost everything; and are doing what we can to help. Not surprisingly, the go-to scripture for so many right now in the midst of it all is Isaiah 61:3.

"and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness
instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
a planting of the LORD
for the display of his splendor."

Because our God is a God of love, of goodness and faithfulness, redemption and restoration. And so many of these families know that the Lord gives and takes away, and choose to praise Him in it all, clinging to hope in what looks like nothing but brokenness and ashes.