Kathrin Shaffer (00:01.026)
Hey friends, this is Catherine Schaeffer from Unpolished by Cult. I didn't plan to record this episode tonight. I had a call with a friend yesterday and we talked about some of my books and Beauty to Ashes came up and we ended up talking about my mom. I got off that call and went about my day. I later on was planning my week at work and I looked at the calendar and there it was. November 19th.

my mom's heavenly birthday. Three years. And I just sat there for a second staring at that date, realizing how something can still sting and still heal at the same time.

Three years since I last heard her voice, three years since I laughed at one of her one-liners, I came out of nowhere, three years since she made me roll my eyes for trying to mother me when I was already grown, three years and it still doesn't feel real. If you've ever lost someone, you know that feeling. You go through the motions, you do the work of healing, but there's still that small part of your heart.

that refuses to believe they're not just a phone call away. And that's how grief works. It's not a seizing you pass through. It's a companion you learn to walk beside. In some days it's quiet, respectful, almost gentle. Other days it's loud, inconvenient, and uninvited. But it's always there in some way. I wrote Beauty to Ashes.

because of that companion, because I didn't want grief to be the only thing left of her story or mine. I didn't know then that God was already taking what broke me and beginning to build something redemptive out of it. The funny thing is, my mom passed before I became to faith, before I met Jesus in a way that changed everything. Back then, I didn't understand what people meant when they said,

Kathrin Shaffer (02:14.136)
God gives beauty for ashes. I just knew I was standing in a pile of them and I didn't know what to do next. My mom would have laughed at that image and she probably would have said something like, well, sweep up kid, can't live in ashes forever. She had that kind of humor, the dry matter of fact hand that could slice through sadness before it swallowed you whole. My mom, she loved to laugh. She loved old movies.

the black and white ones where every line was clever and every pause meant something. She'd watch comedies and make these sharp little comments that would have made me laugh harder than the show itself.

She taught me to pay attention to people, not just what they said, but how they said it.

The way their hands fitted it when they were nervous. The way they would eye contact when something hurt. She'd say, watch people honey. They'll tell you who they are without saying a word. And she was right. I still do that. It's how I write, how I connect, and how I serve. She gave me eyes that see past words. And that's a gift that followed me long after she left.

She also taught me how to laugh at myself, a skill I didn't realize was survival level, important until life decided to test me. When everything goes wrong and you still find the strength to laugh, that's not denial. That's faith wearing sneakers. Even back then, before I really knew Jesus, I think he was working through her, through her words, her resilience, her love.

Kathrin Shaffer (04:10.04)
that never had conditions attached to it. She loved me when I was easy to love and she loved me when I wasn't. She'd tell me all the time, you're the strong one, Catherine, you can do anything. And for years, I thought she meant I was invincible. That strength meant doing everything alone, never breaking, never needing help. But now,

After coming to faith, I finally get what she was trying to say. She wasn't telling me I was unbreakable. She was telling me that even when I broke, I would always find my way back. That there was something inside me, or maybe someone, that would hold me up when I couldn't hold myself. And boy, I wish she could see me now.

Not because I've got it all together, far from it, but because I finally understand, strength the way she meant it. I finally know it's not about self-reliance. It's about divine dependence. When she passed, I didn't know Jesus. I didn't have that language yet. The faith, the peace, the knowing. I just had pain.

But pain was the place he met me first. And it's strange to say that now that God met me through grief, but that's exactly what happened.

Grief has a way of stripping away all the noise, all the performance, all the things we think make us whole. It takes us down to the core of who we are. And there, in that raw, trembling space, God whispers, now we can begin. That whisper became Beauty to Ashes. At first I thought I was writing a book about loss. And...

Kathrin Shaffer (06:19.618)
By the time I finished, I realized it was a book about resurrection. Not hers, mine. Because that's what God does with grief. He doesn't erase it, he redeems it. He takes the pieces that don't make sense, the laughter, the pain, the absence, the wishful thinking, and he weaves them into a story that somehow points back to him. So today,

on her third heavenly birthday, I've been thinking about all the ways she still shows up in my life. In the way I comfort others, in the way I catch myself making the same little sarcastic comments she used to make, in the way I love people who are hard to love, and there's plenty of them. Every good thing God has built in me has her fingerprints somewhere in the foundation.

Sometimes I sit and imagine her reaction to what I do now to this podcast to the writing to the faith And I can see her smirking and saying Took you long enough kid And I'd laugh because yeah it did But God's timing never misses grief still visits it doesn't leave But grace always shows up right after it

They've learned to live side by side in my life and I've learned to stop choosing between them. And maybe that's what Beauty for Ashes really means. It's not one nor placing the other. It's both existing together somehow and still pointing to God.

Three years later, I'm not over it. I never will be. But I'm grateful now in a way I couldn't be before. Because grief isn't proof that love ended. It's proof that love mattered. And it still does. And there's this moment that happens sometimes. And it's so hard to explain. But maybe you felt it. It's when grief and gratitude overlap.

Kathrin Shaffer (08:44.098)
when you start crying because you miss them. But halfway through you start thanking God you ever got to love them that much. It's strange, holy ground where ache and appreciation shake hands. And that's what tonight feels like.

Three years ago, I would have done anything to make the pain stop. I thought healing meant forgetting, that I'd have to let go of her to move on. But grief has taught me that moving on isn't real.

You don't move on from someone you love. You move forward with them. You carry them in new ways. They show up in how you talk, how you think, how you treat people. And for me, my mom shows up in the way I love through my faith.

When I first started writing Beauty to Ashes, it wasn't a book. It was therapy. It was me sitting down with God, pouring out all the parts I didn't understand. I didn't know how to pray properly yet. I didn't have the fancy church words. I just had tears and memories. So I wrote.

And somewhere between the pain and the pages, God started doing something beautiful. I didn't even realize it then, but he was healing me through the act of telling the truth.

Kathrin Shaffer (10:33.162)
Every time I put a sentence down, he took a little bit of the heaviness with it. Every word was an exchange. My sorrow for his peace, my confusion for his clarity. And that's when I started to see what Isaiah meant when it said, he gives beauty for ashes. It's not a transaction, it's transformation.

The ashes don't disappear. They become the soil where new things grow. So when I look back now, I see the thread of grace running through all of it, even in the moments that felt unbearable. Even when I was angry, even when I said, Lord, I don't understand. He didn't flinch. He stayed.

And that's the part I wish I could tell my mom. That even when I thought I was alone after she passed, I wasn't. That Jesus was already there in the ache, waiting for the day I'd stop running long enough to feel his presence. I wish I could tell her that he is the reason I can sit here today and talk about her without falling apart.

That he's the reason laughter still lives here, right beside the longing. That he is the reason her words, you're the strong one, finally make sense to me now.

I used to think strength meant surviving. Now I know it means surrendering, letting God do what I can't. Somewhere between the hospital goodbyes and the silent nights afterwards, God was already writing a resurrection into the story. I just couldn't see it yet.

Kathrin Shaffer (12:44.416)
And now three years later, he's still doing it. Every time I get to share her story or mine, every time I see someone else find healing in the same pages that once held my pain, that's resurrection. That's beauty being born out of ashes. And I'll be honest, I didn't think beauty to ashes would reach anyone. I just want to make sense of what

didn't make sense. But God had bigger plans. Because that's what he does with broken things. He multiplies them. He takes what should have ended us and uses it to begin something new. That is the strange math of grace. Nothing's wasted. Not even grief.

especially not grief. I think that's why anniversaries like today matter so much. They're reminders not of loss, but of love. Of the fact that we were blessed enough to have someone who changed us so deeply that even heaven can't silence their echo.

I don't see grief as punishment anymore. It's a reminder of what it means to have loved well. And maybe that's the greatest reflection of God's own heart that we ache because he built us for connection, not separation. There's something sacred about realizing that your healing is part of your mother's legacy too. That's the prayer.

she whispered over you when you didn't even believe in prayer are still unfolding now. That her faith in you even before your faith in him was never misplaced.

Kathrin Shaffer (14:57.964)
She used to tell me I could do anything. She was right, but not in the way I thought. Definitely not in the way I thought. It's not that I can do anything because I'm strong. It's that I can do all things because of the one who strengthens me. And she planted that truth long before I knew what Philippians 4.13 meant.

And I think about that sometimes. Our mothers often preach sermons. They never know they're preaching through their laughter, through their persistence, through the way they keep loving us, even when we're hard to love.

She didn't just tell me who I was. She told me who I could become.

Kathrin Shaffer (15:52.959)
And maybe she didn't get to see it here, but she gets to see it now. Grief doesn't get to have the final word. It never did.

Love does and faith does. God does.

The ashes were real, but so is the beauty. So if you're listening right now and you've lost someone, especially someone who shaped you, who loved you without conditions, who made the world brighter just by existing, I want you to know this. The ache you feel isn't failure.

It's proof of something sacred. It's proof that love planted roots deep enough that even death couldn't pull them out. And the God who promises beauty for ashes, he means it. I know because I've lived it. Three years later, the missing is still there. But so is the miracle.

And I still cry sometimes. But now I cry knowing those tears water the ground where hope grows. And I can't call her anymore. But I can honor her by living the kind of life she always believed I could. One that still laughs, still forgives, still loves people deeply. Not perfectly, but sincerely.

Kathrin Shaffer (17:38.529)
Because that's what she taught me. To love when it's inconvenient. To love or to laugh when it hurts. To pay attention to people because everyone's carrying something unseen. And to believe, really, really believe that even in the darkest moments, there's always light waiting to break through.

That's what Beauty to Ashes is about. It's not just my story, it's hers too. Because without her, there would have been no Ashes. And without Jesus, there would have been no Beauty.

Kathrin Shaffer (18:28.491)
You've been listening to Unpolished by Cold.

I'm Catherine Schaefer and today I just wanted to share my mom with you. Her laughter, her lesson, her legacy and the grace that found me after she was gone.

If you're walking through grief, please know it's okay that it still hurts. It's okay to still miss them. But let those tears fall into God's hands. He knows how to turn them into something beautiful. My mom taught me how to love, but Jesus taught me how to live again. That's the beauty.

that came from the ashes. So if this episode spoke to you, share it with someone who's missing someone today too. And if you need more encouragement, you can always find me at KatherineShafer.com. Hit the like button, subscribe. And until next time, keep showing up to your own story. Keep letting grace do what grief can't.

And remember, heaven's not as far as it feels. Until next time.