I just finished a book this morning by Elisabeth Elliot called
These Strange Ashes.
  It's all about her first year as a missionary in Ecuador.
  She quoted Amy Carmichael, "But these strange ashes, Lord, this nothingness, This baffling sense of loss?
  Son, was the anguish of my stripping less Upon the torturing of the cross?" Elisabeth says, "Each separate experience of individual striping we may learn to accept as a fragment of the suffering Christ bore when He took it all…." 
 

Katherine von Schlegel wrote:

 
"Be still me soul: they best, they heavenly Friend

Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end. 
 

Be still me soul: they God doth undertake

To guide the future as He has the past.

Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;

All now mysterious shall be bright at last.

I love the ending, "now mysterious shall be bright at last."
  When we have strange ashes scattered about, we have a God who gathers.
  And I know God takes ashes and turns them into beauty.
  When i left Kenya i felt so scattered.  Zephaniah says, "I will rescue the lame and gather those who have been scattered.  I will give them praise and honor in every land where they were put to shame.  At that time i will gather you: at that time I will bring you home.  Whatever we are struggling with, our souls can be still...God will undertake and he will gather and he will bring us home.