Removing the Ash Heap

I had a chore to do today that has been looking me in the face for weeks, well maybe even months. I have a place in the backyard where I can burn leaves and sticks. I burned some near the end of the last year, and then added mulch to the heap that would eventually need to be burned also. I finished off the second burning a few weeks ago. This left a pretty big pile of ash in my back yard that needed to be gone before I added to it again.
While I was shoveling it into bags to be hauled off, I was reminded that this was probably a pretty good time to get rid of a pile of ashes. You see, all through the season of Lent we were living on a kind of spiritual ash heap, reminded of our sin, anticipating the coming crucifixion, doing without… Once Easter emerged the ash heap of Lent needed to go. So here I was removing a real ash heap, thinking about the spiritual one that Jesus removed at the resurrection.

One thing I noticed. As I got near the bottom of the heap, I found the original ashes I burned several months ago. The neat thing is that by now they had all but turned to soil. Here the ashes were dark and moist and rich with nutrients, and probably pretty good for planting. All of a sudden it struck me. What was once ash and ruin after time turned into something useful and full of life. This is exactly what happens with the ashes in our life too. The tragedies and trials that occur often become something that gives us strength later on. They can be used as examples, giving encouragement to others who might be going through the same thing now.
The pain of trial, temptation, tragedy, and other disasters in our lives will probably never leave us completely, but given the fact that we are a people who live on the other side of the ash heap, in the light of Easter, there may be a time when the old ashes turn to fertile soil.