From the Ashes

Resurrection of the World Trade Center, NYC

For You are my hope, O Sovereign Lord,

My confidence since my youth.

Psalm 71:5

There is nothing quite like the thought of beauty rising from the ashes.  The Phoenix bird has long been a legend of hope against all odds.  Rarely have I heard a story that better represents this hope than the saga of Jaycee Dugard.

Snatched at eleven years old by a sexual predator and his equally disturbed wife who had stalked Jaycee for weeks to give her as a “gift” to her husband.  Taken to their home, she was stripped of all her clothing, and dressed in garments of their choosing.  The one thing they missed was a tiny butterfly ring given to her by her mother, which would be her symbol of hope for the next eighteen years.

 Jaycee became a sexual slave, living locked in a tiny soundproof room, eventually giving birth to two children.  Those children became her gift – a gift from loneliness, a gift of love and companionship.  Never did she falter in her belief that her mother was out there somewhere searching desperately for her.  Never did she give up hope.  After eighteen long, miserable years, the police finally became suspicious of the children and thoroughly searched the extensive compound that was their home.  Jaycee was discovered, and she (and her children) were reunited with her mother and extended family.

Many people, having emerged from almost two decades of abuse, would be completely broken.  Not Jaycee Dugard.  Diane Sawyers filmed a special presentation of Jaycee’s life that aired last night.  It was amazing to watch this confident young woman who survived on hope, faith and her children’s love, relive her experience on national television – determined now to live life to the fullest, give and receive abundant love to her mother, and protect her children at all cost.

Long ago, on a lonely hill in a barricaded grave lay a man – dead by the hands of hatred and deceit.  For His friends, there was nothing left – no hope, no peace, only fear.  But on the third day, the skies were split with a blinding brilliance as God sent forth His messengers to the resting place of His Son.  With a mighty voice, the trumpet call went forth:  Arise, my Love!  And from that tomb the Son of God arose from the cesspool of death – radiating majesty, and love and eternal hope.