She Grinned

The LORD will surely comfort Zion and will look with compassion on all her ruins; He will make her deserts like Eden, her wastelands like the garden of the LORD. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the sound of singing. Isaiah 51:3 NIV

She grinned. Her smile spread wider than all the years that have spread wings and fled. She had been gritty with disappointment and leaking hope like some beat-up car dripping oil, dirtying the drive. For long years, she had been the beat-up and cast-aside. Her dreams, long since dried up as the desert, scorched by hurt and lack. There is no explaining the depth of her barrenness, the breadth of her loss. She has been shackled by poverty, burnt by demands and stumbled, scathed, through life. Thirty long years she lived amongst the refuse of society, without beauty. Without necessities. Comfort-less. Who could fathom such a life?
Yet, the LORD heard her cries, saw her distress, and had compassion upon the ruins of such.
Pulling into the driveway of a house, lovely, in a neighborhood green with grass and trees, was enough. She was undone, the years unhinged by beauty, she wept. It was as if each tear that had been shed through the decades, now sprang up with life, lavished fully.
And so it was, upon entering this home, this safe haven from life's destruction, that she grinned. The excitement oozed from each pore of her being. She continued to weep, freely, uttering, "It is a dream come true!".  In her broken world, this was wealth beyond understanding. This was ten years of Christmas, even twenty!
As I witnessed this redemption, I, too, was undone. I had merely viewed her world from afar. I had ached and wept for long years over the destruction that was hers. My help often felt like throwing drops of water into a canyon of need. How often I had despaired of her life ever changing, of hope ever showing up at her door. Yet here it was, right here in front of me. Years of neglect and abuse, of lack and of need, transformed, in a moment.
What was once barren, is now abundant. Where fear reigned, now only joy. Here was the safe haven she had needed for so very long. Here was hope displayed in all its splendor. And it was hers, indefinitely.
Redemption had come waltzing in the door, singing gaily, "You are loved! You are loved!" And she grinned. Oh, how she grinned!