last month as I was working on a personal branding project.. I found that xi (熹）meant 'bright/warm/fire'. on the day I was born it was sunny and it was raining. so my dad named me after that sun and my sister after that rain. when I read those words again there was a hum, an agreement deep inside me, as if I had these words inside me all along. and as I wrote and wrote, I found that over the years of writing my heart out, this word has swam its way into my writing, nudged it's way into one of my fav phrases, pulled me closer to people whom I know are these things.. and perhaps drove me to want to be bright, to be warm, to have fire. 

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when i picked out my english name, it was just a beautiful name with less meaning that I hope it would have had. But since I used it at a part time job in 2014, it kind of stuck. But it's only in the last couple of weeks.. that I have begun to feel the meaning of that name unfold. 

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beauty for ashes. 

and that's when something shifted in me... ashes indeed. 

there has never been a point in my walk with Him that I have felt more like ashes, never been a point where I have felt more like dust. But yet, there has never been a point in my walk that I have understood His grace more, felt His mercy in this way, seen the hand of God reach down and grab me out of the pit. 

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You have taken me from the darkness into light, brought me from my knees to touch the sky, exchanged ashes for a crown of beauty. Ashes I am, ashes I will continue to be; for a weak and contrite heart Lord, You will never despise.