About the Book
"Beauty for Ashes" by Zac Poonen is a Christian book that explores the concept of God's ability to transform pain and suffering into beauty and joy. Poonen provides insights and stories from the Bible to demonstrate how God can bring restoration and healing to individuals who have experienced brokenness and despair. The book highlights the importance of faith, forgiveness, and surrendering to God's will in order to experience true transformation and redemption.
Smith Wigglesworth
Smith Wigglesworth was born in 1859 to a very poor family. His father did manual labor, for very little pay. Smith himself went to work at the age of six to help with the family income. At six he was pulling turnips and at seven he was working in a woolen mill twelve hours a day. His parents did not know God, but Smith hungered in his heart to know Him. Even as a youngster he would pray in the fields. His grandmother was the critical Christian in his life. She was a Wesleyan Methodist and would take Smith to meetings with her. At one of these meetings there was a song being sung about Jesus as the lamb and Smith came into the realization of God's love for him and his decision to believe Christ for his salvation was decided that day. He was immediately filled with the desire to evangelize and led his own mother to Christ.
Smith has various church experiences as he was growing up. He first went to an Episcopal church and then at thirteen a Wesleyan Methodist church. When he was sixteen he became involved in the Salvation Army. He felt deeply called to fast and pray for lost souls. He saw many people come to Christ. At seventeen a mentor shared with him about water baptism and he decided to be baptized. The Salvation Army was experiencing a tremendous level of the power of God in those days. He describes meetings where "many would be prostrated under the power of the Spirit, sometimes for as long as twenty-four hours at a time." They would pray and fast and cry out for the salvation of fifty or a hundred people for the week and they would see what they had prayed for.
At eighteen Smith left the factory and became a plumber. He moved to Liverpool when he was twenty and continued to work during the day and minister during his free time. He felt called to minister to young people and brought them to meetings. These were destitute and ragged children, whom he would often feed and care for. Hundreds were saved. Smith was often asked to speak in Salvation meetings and he would break down and weep under the power of God. Many would come to repentance in those meetings through this untrained man. At twenty-three he returned back Bradford and continued his work with the Salvation Army.
In Bradford Smith met Mary Jane Featherstone, known as Polly, the daughter of a temperance lecturer. She left home and went to Bradford to take a servants job. One night she was drawn to a Salvation Army meeting. She listened to the woman evangelist, Gipsy Tillie Smith, and gave her heart to Christ. Smith was in that meeting and saw her heart for God. Polly became an enthusiastic Salvationsist and was granted a commission by General Booth. They developed a friendship, but Polly went to Scotland to help with a new Salvationist work. She eventually moved back to Bradford and married Smith, who was very much in love with her.
The couple worked together to evangelize the lost. They opened a small church in a poor part of town. Polly would preach and Smith would make the altar calls. For a season, however, Smith became so busy with his plumbing work that his evangelistic fervor began to wane. Polly continued on, bringing Smith to conviction. One day while Smith was working in the town of Leeds he heard of a divine healing meeting. He shared with Polly about it. She needed healing and so they went to a meeting, and Polly was healed.
Smith struggled with the reality of healing, while being ill himself. He decided to give up the medicine that he was taking and trust God. He was healed. They had five children, a girl and four boys. One morning two of the boys were sick. The power of God came and they prayed for the boys and they were instantly healed. Smith struggled with the idea that God would use him to heal the sick in general. He would gather up a group of people and drive them to get prayer in Leeds. The leaders of the meeting were going to a convention and left Smith in charge. He was horrified. How could he lead a meeting about divine healing? He tried to pass it off to someone else but could not. Finally he led the meeting and several people were healed. That was it. From then on Smith began to pray for people for healing.
Smith had another leap to make. He had heard about the Pentecostals who were being baptized in the Holy Spirit. He went to meetings and was so hungry for God he created a disturbance and church members asked him to stop. He went to prayer and prayed for four days. Finally he was getting ready to head home and the vicar's wife prayed for him and he fell under the power of God and spoke in tongues. Everything changed after that. He would walk by people and they would come under the conviction of the Holy Spirit and be saved. He began to see miracles and healings and the glory of God would fall when he prayed and preached.
Smith had to respond to the many calls that came in and gave up his business for the ministry. Polly unexpectedly died in 1913, and this was a real blow to Smith. He prayed for her and commanded that death release her. She did arise but said "Smith - the Lord wants me." His heartbroken response was "If the Lord wants you, I will not hold you". She had been his light and joy for all the years of their marriage, and he grieved deeply over the loss. After his wife was buried he went to her grave, feeling like he wanted to die. When God told him to get up and go Smith told him only if you "give to me a double portion of the Spirit – my wife’s and my own – I would go and preach the Gospel. God was gracious to me and answered my request.” His daughter Alice and son-in-law James Salter began to travel with him to handle his affairs.
Smith would pray and the blind would see, and the deaf were healed, people came out of wheelchairs, and cancers were destroyed. One remarkable story is when He prayed for a woman in a hospital. While he and a friend were praying she died. He took her out of the bed stood her against the wall and said "in the name of Jesus I rebuke this death". Her whole body began to tremble. The he said "in the name of Jesus walk", and she walked. Everywhere he would go he would teach and then show the power of God. He began to receive requests from all over the world. He taught in Europe, Asia, New Zealand and many other areas. When the crowds became very large he began a "wholesale healing". He would have everyone who needed healing lay hands on themselves and then he would pray. Hundreds would be healed at one time.
Over Smith's ministry it was confirmed that 14 people were raised from the dead. Thousands were saved and healed and he impacted whole continents for Christ. Smith died on March 12, 1947 at the funeral of his dear friend Wilf Richardson. His ministry was based on four principles " First, read the Word of God. Second, consume the Word of God until it consumes you. Third believe the Word of God. Fourth, act on the Word."
3 Trials Every Marriage Will Face
When I was married at the age of twenty-three, I wasn’t naïve. I knew marriage was going to be difficult. I knew it was going to take dedication and work. I knew there would be challenges and trials. Sometimes, I don’t know that we give our young married couples credit due to them when they enter into a union. We assume they see marriage as all roses and fairy tales, but I think most young adults are aware that trials are an inevitable part of marriage. What I’m not sure they—or I—realized is that there is a set of trials that every marriage will face. Every marriage? Yes. Every marriage. Are there any exceptions to this rule? Perhaps, but you’ll have to provide compelling evidence for me to believe that a marriage could possibly escape these trials. “Every” is an all-encompassing word. There are no exceptions to the rule, and therefore, all will be affected. Knowing about these impending trials may give us some insight into how to handle them when they come. 1. The Trial of Identity No matter how unified we are in our marriage relationship, there will come a time when we struggle to find ourselves within our relationship. Some spouses are very content to identify as a couple, while others find friction in being recognized as the “spouse of.” For the spouses who are content to identify as a couple and, in a sense, forgo their individual and independent identities, the trial can become when their “oneness” is threatened. When life intercepts the unity and threatens to take them in separate directions—whether in conviction, opinion, leading, etc. At some point, the one path will threaten to split into two. This doesn’t mean divorce or separation. In fact, nothing so dramatic as that, necessarily. But, there will come a time when the oneness is challenged because, while you are a union, you also have two minds, two souls, and two very individual ways of processing. For the spouses who prefer to maintain their independence and not be identified by their spouse, the trial of identity can come in an opposite way. Often, the quest to not lose their own personage will create a wedge and a separation in the marriage because they want to be seen as their own person so badly. In essence, they will sacrifice elements of oneness to remain single-but-married. This sounds a bit extreme to some, but the reality is that nothing in culture today inspires us to let go of ourselves and become intermeshed with another so deeply that we can’t tell where we end and they begin. Culture encourages us to find self-care and self-identify, which can create conflict within a marriage. The trial of identity has two extreme ends, but we’ll often find ourselves somewhere in the middle. The reality is, there is a fine balance to being a union of two into one and also managing our own unique identities, wills, thought processes, and persons. Be prepared to forge through this trial together. It will polish your marriage if handled with sacrificial love. 2. The Trial of Differences We are truly fooling ourselves if we enter into marriage believing that our differences will be small. Humor and comedy often come into play with the scripts of toothpaste tube squeezing at the end of the middle, TP rolling over the top or beneath, socks folded or piled, bed made or not, etc. Will there be these differences in marriage? Absolutely. But differences don’t limit themselves to the trivial. No matter how much you prepare before you’re married, differences will continue to rise throughout your marriage. They may come in the form of beliefs. For example, you may find that you and your spouse agreed on the significant points of your faith/doctrine, but as you delve into the application of faith and daily life, you both approach life and your faith walks differently. You may find that you didn’t address doctrinal differences nearly as much as you thought, and suddenly one of you believes in the idea of free will while the other believes God predestines those who will follow Him. Your differences may come in the form of goals and dreams. You may have a lifelong dream you agree on initially, but after years of pursuing it, one spouse may simply be done, while the other believes it may still happen. When children come into the equation, you probably will find that you have different parenting skills simply because you were raised differently. This will inevitably cause friction—and probably a lot of it- if you haven’t stopped identifying the major differences areas. Differences will rear their heads constantly throughout your marriage. It’s a trial that is both inevitable and will never go away. Be prepared, not scared. Be open to communicating, setting aside personal feelings, discussing them rationally, and being willing to make compromises. 3. The Trial of Insecurities Men and women have vastly different insecurities. Granted, there are stereotypes of women being super emotional and insecure, while men tend to need to exert their dominance and strength in order to feel confident. Interestingly, I’ve known couples who are the exact opposites of that. I’ve known very sensitive men, and when their wife is displeased with them, it hurts them to the core and makes them question if they’re doing their role as husbands correctly. I’ve known women to feel as though they’ve been diminished into the subservient role of a wife and have no value outside of dishwashing and child-rearing (both of which are highly important for different reasons!). Facts don’t lie. We all have insecurities. Nothing brings out these insecurities like marriage because it’s within marriage that we are the most vulnerable. Our questioning of ourselves becomes evident, and when a spouse questions those very elements, we can experience insecurity like none we’ve faced before. You will battle insecurities within marriage. It is an assured promise that they will come. They will come in various forms. Insecurities you didn’t know you had may come to the surface. Perhaps you’ll develop new insecurities. Circumstances can influence you, push you into dark places you’re not prepared for, and leave you feeling exposed. The trial of insecurity is a big one. You can either choose to be together and work through them, seeking trust and reliance and respect, or those insecurities can fester and become deep wounds of mistrust that eventually lead to rifts in marriage that can take years to heal. Don’t let these trials frighten you. The fact is, difficulties are inevitable. Knowing these are some that are sure to come can help you be proactive in preparing. This means communicating with each other and respecting the other’s position even if you don’t understand or agree. It means seeking the Lord in prayer together so that while you’re your own individuals, you can also have a unity that will continue to grow during these difficulties. Marriage is a guaranteed trial. But as Proverbs says, two are better than one, and three strands are not easily broken; binding both of your hearts around the central Person of Christ will strengthen you for the troubled days ahead. Jaime Jo Wright Crosswalk.com Contributing Writer
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