Beauty for Ashes

     I love the pioneer-era buildings in downtown Provo, Utah.  Like many other people, I was very sad to hear of the fire that gutted the tabernacle several years ago, but elated by the announcement by Pres. Thomas S. Monson in October 2011 that the tabernacle would be rebuilt as a temple.

     While I was in the Mount Timpanogos Temple recently, I was reading one of my favorite chapters of scripture, Isaiah 61.  As I pondered this beautiful passage, thoughts of the destruction of the Provo Tabernacle and its subsequent rebuilding as a temple came to mind:

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;

 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;

 To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified.

 And they shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations.

     Christ's Atonement has the power to restore what is lost and repair what is broken, and the restoration of the Provo Tabernacle as a temple is the perfect symbol of this power.  Many lives on both sides of the will be greatly blessed by the ordinances that will be performed in this temple.  As Isaiah said, the Lord is blessing us with "beauty for ashes."  The blessings far exceed the sorrow that we experienced at the loss of the building.  As the psalmist said, "weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning" (Psalm 30:5).