Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Beautiful (11/07/05)
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TITLE: Beauty in the Ashes | Previous Challenge Entry
By Shane Kahkola
11/13/05 -
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I walked to the rim of the giant volcano’s caldera as the pungent odor of sulfur brutalized my sense of smell. It was breath-taking because of the sheer vastness of the expanse before me, but, it was hideous with black ashen debris and lava fields. Nothing beautiful could come of this. Ugly yellow streaks of sulfur seemed to litter the landscape in various locations. Yet I stood speechless. I knew the destruction this volcano had caused. I knew the devastation it left behind when it took captive the lives of the unsuspecting villagers that had settled nearby. It wasn’t pretty, it was fearful!
I began my trek around the rim, taking scads of pictures in the process. Each scene was basically the same thing. It was picture after picture of lava rock, ash, sulfur and ugliness. About half way around the rim I stopped abruptly, awe-struck again. It was like watching an iris bloom from solid rock, yet this wasn’t an iris. It was red with greenish-black accents on the edges. It didn’t seem like a flower, yet it was unlike any other plant. It seemed to be more of a cactus without the needles. It was flat, maybe as thick as a pencil and it had three “petals” that jutted-out on the sides. There were two “petals” on the right side and the third seemed to be staggered from the other two on the opposite side. It was long and narrow. It was as if someone dripped red paint on a dusty and grimy floor. It seemed random in its shape, but purposeful in its placement.
I tried, and failed, to pick it. I suppose I would have only choked the life out of it. To pluck it from where it grew would be to remove it from its source of life. Besides, the beauty of this flower would only begin to pale in comparison to others. For, it was not the splendor of the plant itself that held me spell-bound. It was the beauty of the contrast that captivated my soul’s attention. And so it is with Jesus and the cross. How dark, ugly and plain the hillside must have been. The road to Golgotha was nothing more than dirt and pebbles. When He reached the top of the hill, it was clearly a wasteland. It was a hill known to the people of Jerusalem as a place of shame and death. That day, it seemed, would be no different.
On the hill, which represented vile and ugly people dying violent painful deaths, there was a contrast. Like a desert flower growing out of an unlikely place, a barren hillside, there was Jesus doing His greatest work. The beauty and splendor of the Savior was in full bloom that afternoon as he hung there saving the world. Many times, as a young Christian, I wished I could be there to pluck him off the cross. Now, I realize that I would have only choked the eternal life from all of us if I had been able to remove Him from the tree. His death wasn’t random. His placement on the cross was purposeful. It was intentional. It was the bright spot amidst the ugliness. He did it to bring the beauty of salvation to our lives.
Today, I see the picture I took of that flower and I am constantly reminded of the Savior’s love. Romans 5:8 in the NASB translation says, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” He was a beautiful bloom in the midst of ugliness and destruction.
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If I had read “Beauty in the Ashes,” I would have picked this one too. It looked like a lots of words,