HE GAVE ME BEAUTY FOR ASHES

Good morning, World!

It's a brand new day, a new beginning, with 24 new hours to be filled. What are you going to fill these hours with?

May I suggest we determine this day it will not just be an ordinary day? In other words, make your day count. Let's not just do the everyday "thing." Yes, we have work to do at our jobs. We have family responsibilities and many other things that call our attention.

However, I want to challenge us to look around us today specifically looking how we can be a blessing to someone. So many people are hurting. Let's take our eyes off ourselves and look for opportunities to help another.

We don't know the hardship someone is going through. The act of kindness towards someone who's hurting might be what brings someone back to life. Let's be people who go out of our way to care about others. So much falseness going on in our world. Be a person filled with genuine love, compassion, and love.

I'm asking God to bring people my way who are down, in a pit of despair, hopeless, and who feel alone. Those who are at the end of their rope, the very one who feels life is over because of the situation he or she finds him/herself in. I'm ready to bring them to a place of revived hope in the God who takes our deepest hurts and sorrows and who miraculously brings forth beauty from the ashes.

Whoever you are, wherever you might be I'm strongly letting you know there is hope for YOU.

What a beautiful reminder this morning! Yes, joy does come with the morning. Mornings represent a new day. With the hope our circumstances will change. Sometimes, it takes many days for that circumstance to change, but I promise you it will change when you but your hope and trust in a unfailing God. This is his promise, "Joy comes in the morning."

Six years ago to the date, I walked a road I never thought I would walk. My world came crashing down. I was in a state of hopeless and couldn't imagine how I would ever return to the my joy. In fact, I begged God to please not take my joy away. For those who walked with me, you remember my many moments of despair and crying to you please ask God to bring my joy back to me.

It was a slow process back but I made it. I was blessed with friendships that were real and who put their arms around me, and wouldn't let go. Who literally pulled me out of that pit of despair. I promised them and God if he would restore my joy and hope, I would do everything in my power to use it to help anyone that crossed my path who was experiencing those same feelings.

Today, I'm leaving to receive my Ph.D., as I graduate next Saturday. I'm going to walk across that stage, I'm going to be speaking at my graduation ceremony, and I'm going to take hold of that doctorate, and I'm going to let it take me wherever and lead me to whomever God brings me too. with one purpose in mind. To help everyone that comes in contact with me in any form or shape, with the great news they, too, can make it. There is a God that sees everything that you go through. He's not happy to see you suffer. He didn't cause your suffering. The opposite is true. He wants to help you. Restore, give you back, what has been stolen. He wants to bless you. He even says, "He bottles your tears!" That's how important your tears are to him.

I'm grateful to God so very grateful, the years that I thought were wasted and meaningless. Those months, that led to years of crying and feeling alone. Abandoned, wondering why would God allow such a horrible thing to happen to me. Only served to make me much better then who I thought I was. Much stronger, with a more powerful sense of purpose. I'm determined, I'm unstoppable. I am fully aware of God's purpose for my life. It's his to do what he needs to do to bless those who are hurting.

God used my brokenness to be super sensitive to those who are hurting around me. To be used as a vessel of hope and bring forth joy to the broken, hopeless, and joyless, I couldn't see this six years ago, but I can see what God has done, clearly now in my life.

My message is simple today. You, too, can make it out of that pit of despair. Call out to a God that specializes in restoration and brings new hope. Taking the ashes of our lives and bringing forth beauty. Make this your day of joy, may the weeping end as you catch a glimpse of his glory and what he has done in my life., understanding he wants to do the same for you.

Please know I'm here for YOU. Don't be afraid or ashamed. I have been where you are, and I understand. No judgment from me. I'm here to give you my hand and pull you out of that pit of despair and hopeless as my wonderful friends did for me.

To my friends who I tagged, thank you for the hours, weeks, months, and years you invested in me. Crying with me, helping me, reminding me I would make it, and pulling me out of that horrible pit. I made it because of your love and your determination to see me through. This victory is for all of us! I love you, and I thank you.

Dr. Teresa Allissa Citro

Founder/President

Thread of Hope, Inc.

#encouragement #hope #success #joy