When We Burn: Some Thoughts on Beauty and Ashes
A Story, A Meditation, and Two Secret Poems from my Forthcoming Book, Exalted Ground
FIRE: A MEDITATION
What is it about the fire?
So necessary for life—yet so destructive.
Fire is sustenance. Fire is regenerative.
Fire is poetry before poetry, too.
Yet, she burns, wrecks, and eviscerates.
Hello, to Fire. Hello, to the Holy Hurt of Suffering.
Lord, let us make peace with her necessary forces—
the way she dances through the coldest night with her body to keep us alive,
the way she lights up the world and lone sky with fiery grace,
the way she licks at our souls and all we’ve stocked up with a hungry tongue to devour,
the way she seeks to purify with power…
May we find the beauty in her—the work she does—
and these here ashes that remain.
LET IT BURN: MY STORY
In the midst of my suffering through critical illness, I could only see how the fire burned. Everything was lost, devoured, or in ruins. And as I stood in the ash heap, I begged God, “Where are you?”
I waited and waited for His answer.
But my rage and anguish were too loud to hear His still small voice—and too loud, still, for me to remember and feel the truth God had tucked inside my soul years before.
After months in bed and a litany of procedures and surgeries, I was finally too weak and run-down to fight anymore. So, I released everything because there was no other choice. I let go of what I thought should have been my life and all the things and people I thought would withstand the flames. I turned up my fists and loosened my grip—starved fingers like tendrils curling upward embraced the lingering air as if there was a hand to touch. And instead of begging God, “Where are you?” I whispered, “Your will be done…”
Then, I sobbed like I had given my life away.
Seasons came and went.
There were many more days in bed. Many more procedures and surgeries to face.
Rain came.
Wind came.
Sun came.
Then cold days came.
And warm days, too.
Morning after morning, I found myself still here—still alive. And as I sat with my new landscape—one that was charred but intact—I found a way toward healing, the way back to myself, the way to my Father, who had always been there—even in the burning, waiting for me.
And then, one fine morning, to quote Fitzgerald’s tour de force, there was something else new. As I looked and looked again at the wasteland that was my life, I found something so saving, so awe-inspiring, so beautifully poetic—and entirely worth the wait…
Beneath the washed-out ash and parched ground, small green ringlets worked overnight to peek up at me—heralding, like the Great Phoenix, a rebirth.
I gasped with a knowing, starving delight, much like a parched castaway drinks from a cup of water.
Soon, these green ringlets multiplied and stretched.
And not long after, flowers of every hue and shape opened their mouths in praise, singing, “We have come for you.” For each death, a new bloom. For each loss, a rose.
And then—like a dream—I found myself standing in a forest, so voracious and lush, that there were days I had forgotten to ache about the Great Fire and all she took.
This beauty from ashes story is not to say we forget our pain or that we all make peace with the injustice or burdens that we carry through our stories. But it is to say that the fire is not the last chapter.
Today, I hold the flowers and my scars. I walk the wooded paths with a limp. I sometimes look over my shoulder and yearn for what the fire consumed, but there is beauty in these necessary ashes and there are many ways I am being called further into the copse—this planting of the Lord—and He will be with me through it all.
Blessed be the name of the Lord.
Blessed be His name.
“To appoint unto them that mourn… to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified.”
ISAIAH 61:3
“Look!” he answered, “I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire; and they are not hurt, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.”
DANIEL 3:25
Here, for my paid subscribers, I share two poems written this past year, as I processed the Holy Hurt of Suffering that is FIRE. They are NEW poems in my forthcoming book, Exalted Ground: Poems of Praise and Lament for the Living, coming out in Spring of 2025. May you feel held and seen in your own suffering story, and may you find God's beauty for your ashes. May you hold on to see it and witness it and hold the blooms in your hands. They are coming... WHEN WE BURN By Kimberly Phinney
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