I was not prepared.

When I left the house at 5:30 pm today to head over to an event, I wasn't expecting much. Shadow Mountain's women's ministries had planned a "Girls' Nite Out" for the women in the church, and my friend D and a few other girls were going, but one girl pulled out at the last minute, so D invited me to come.  I was reluctant at first, but decided to go. I needed to get out of the house and have some fellowship.

When I got there, the place was decked out in true SMCC style. Giant paper flowers on huge foam boards that were vaguely the shape of the US. Gerbera daisies on the tables. Pink everywhere and a beautiful catered salad dinner. We prayed, we ate, we laughed, we payed close attention to the raffle numbers being called.

And then Tammy Trent came onto the stage. She was older than her photo made her look. She started to sing a few songs, and I wrote her off in my head as one of those shallow Christians that's all happiness and no sorrow. Cheerful rainbows and flowers and sunshine. What Jan Meyer, author of my favorite book ever, calls "saccharine Christianity".  But what does Miss Tammy Trent know? I want me a good raw Christian singer. Someone who's known real pain. Someone who knows what I feel like in the dark moments.

She began to tell her story. First a funny tale of how Keith Urban lived across the street from her and she had some bizarre almost-meeting encounters. But then the tale of how God brought someone into her life- a man. She met him at the age of 15 and they dated for 7 years. Then they married, she started becoming well-known in Christian circles, and he went on tour with her. But after eleven years of blissful albeit challenging marriage, her husband died in a freak diving accident off the coast of Jamaica.

She recounted the moments when she stood at the edge of the water, knowing her husband was somewhere in that lagoon, knowing that she was alone.  Because the afternoon that it happened was September 10, 2001 and when she made the calls to her family, she had no idea that every one of them would be grounded in airports across the US the next morning.  The only one who made it through was her father-in-law, who'd caught a red-eye the night before.  As he handled the details, she found herself utterly alone, with no one to cry out to but Jesus.

As Tammy told her story, I knew it was for me.  I don't pretend to liken my heartache to what must be the searing pain of losing a spouse.  But with the burn of broken promises and shattered dreams still fresh in my heart, I spend much of my time in quiet desperation, hoping I will wake up.  Today I indulged in a little daydream where the whole breakup was just a really ill-conceived April Fool's Joke gone horribly awry.

I feel made of ash, the burnt refuse of a person, unfit for anything but sweeping up and throwing out.
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Years ago, I worked at the Creation and Earth History Museum. I sat at the reception desk and waited for people to come into the museum. I greeted them and talked occasionally. There was one man who was a regular-- came in about once a month.

Every time he came in, he told me about Mount Saint Helens. He lived in Idaho in 1980 when the volcano blew its top, and he saw the ash cloud from miles away. The cloud drifted east, propelled by sea breezes from the Pacific and all that ash settled onto northern Idaho.

Every time this man told me the story, he would say, "And do you know, for the next ten years, we had the best apples in Idaho that we'd ever had."  He said this over and over. But if he hadn't, it wouldn't have stuck in my head.

Tonight, I made the connection.

See, ash is a great fertilizer. In fact, one of the best. I've told this story again and again, usually to my students to show them that even catastrophes have positive consequences. But I never believed it to be figuratively true as well as literally.

The ashes of my life, the charred remains of my hopes and dreams, are fertilizer for something better. Something more beautiful. Something useful. Tonight, for the first time in two months, something green is sprouting out of the ashes settled in the floor of my heart.

Hope.

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Note: D also blogged about this event.  Click here for her deep and encouraging words.