Beauty For Ashes

Journal entry. 4.42AM. 30th of April. 2026.

Low esteem has followed me from early childhood. From those joyless years there grew within me a deep poverty of heart which I carried as a burden hidden wherever I went. In my youth I was bullied and wounded by others, and in college I gave myself over to rebellion, folly, and much anger. I withdrew from the fellowship of men, for I had learned to despise both my past, myself, and the company of others.

So consumed was I by self-pity that I began to cherish my misery as though it were a crown. I gloried in the image of being a ruined young man, mistaking sorrow for depth and bitterness for understanding. Though I was raised in a religious household and taught the things of God from my earliest days, my soul did not grow heavenward. Instead, like a wandering sheep, I grew farther and farther away.

Even now, whenever I set my thoughts before others, my heart mocks me. No sooner have I posted a video or published an article from my journal, that a harsh voice speaks from the depths of my soul, bidding me to withdraw my words and hide myself again.

No one cares about what you say.
You are illiterate, and a fool.
There are better Christians than you!
You are so proud and vain.
So you feel intelligent now?
You are a laughingstock.
Stay quiet. You are a shame to God. 
Everything you say and do is wrong.

Thus my own heart becomes an accuser against me, and I stand condemned before I have even been answered.

I have long expected from others not charity, but ridicule; not understanding, but contempt. And so my mind has been constantly troubled and unquiet. My thoughts rush one after another with such violence and ferocity that I can scarcely discern them before they vanish away. It is as though I am standing beside rusted tracks while a great train is rushing past five inches from my face, terrible in noise, leaving me drunk, reeling in confusion, and unable to process anything. My inward man grows weary beneath the ceaseless tumult.

Yet in such an afflicted condition my soul flees not unto itself, the way I used to, but unto God in His Word. For the heart of this wretch is a poor and roofless refuge, but the mercy of Christ remaineth steadfast. Struck down by man, lifted up by God. He alone has always been gentle toward this bruised reed, this trembling half-wit. Though my soul be disordered and cast down, the Lord is not confused by my weakness, nor doth He despise my cry of brokenness.

No earthly master would entrust his labor unto a servant unfit for the task, for men seek strength where there is strength, wisdom where there is wisdom, and usefulness where there is already proven ability. But the Lord God dealeth not with men after the manner of men. He qualifies the unqualified and makes them sufficient by His own hand. He sends forth those whom the world counts as worthless, and gives power unto those who confess they have none.

The proud heart He resists and breaks into pieces, that no flesh should glory in His sight. Yet the weak and trembling He upholds with great tenderness, causing even the feeblest vessel to bear witness unto His strength. For His ways are not the ways of man, neither are His thoughts as our thoughts. Man looks upon infirmity and mocks it; he beholds weakness and despises it. But God delights to magnify His power through the disabled, the broken, and the lowly, so that all glory might return unto Him alone. Thus the soul that hath nothing may yet rejoice in fullness, for the Lord Himself becometh its sufficiency.

I have come to learn, in my lonely desert wanderings, that the greater gift of God is not merely strength granted unto weakness, but a holy delight in His rest and consolation. There is a sacred contentment I find in Him which the world cannot bestow, neither can it take away. In former days I sought chiefly for deliverance from my affliction, yet now in the midst of it I perceive that the Lord instead gives something incomparably sweeter: Himself.

His beauty for my ashes. 

The Scriptures have become more precious unto me, as cool water unto a throat-parched pilgrim in a dry and dead land. There is a deeper savor in the reading of the Word, and a sweeter communion, many early mornings, in the secret place of prayer, when no eye sees me save God alone. My soul learns, little by little, to sit in silence, with my eyes closed and my spirit calmed, basking in the warm wonder of His majesty, beneath the quiet shadow of His beauty, and therein I find my peace.

And I have found that the great comfort of Christ does not chiefly consist of power in the flesh, nor of outward relief from every sorrow, but in my spirit resting beneath the beauty of His presence. There, beside the still waters, my inward man finds peace. There my soul is restored, and the tempest in my heart is made still. For though the wilderness remain, yet Christ's abiding presence makes even the desert a place of quiet springs.