On September 29th I started this post. It's October 15th, and I still don't want to finish it. Of course I'm ready to get done with it so that I can stop thinking about it. Or maybe that's why I don't want to finish it-I don't want to stop thinking about it. I don't want to go back to who I was. And I don't want to stay here. I want God to so supernaturally change me to look so much like His Son that people know it was divine intervention because I look so little that the Amy that I am, and the one that I used to be. So I'm going to finish this post out of obedience and pray that I don't stop living what I learned.
"When we are at our wits' end for an answer, then the Holy Spirit can give us an answer. But how can He give us an answer when we are still well supplied with all sorts of answers of our own?"
"When we are at our wits' end for an answer, then the Holy Spirit can give us an answer. But how can He give us an answer when we are still well supplied with all sorts of answers of our own?"
Karl Barth
My life hasn't always been easy. My mom had me when she was 16. Dad left us when she was 19. That's how things started. I'm not here to complain about it all, though. Much the opposite, really. I'm thankful for it all now. I'm thankful for every single hard thing that's even been in my life. Sometimes when I'm feeling sorry for myself or worn down, I'll lay all the unfair instances of my life end to end to see how far they'll stretch, and then I'll congratulate myself for beating the odds and not becoming one of the statistics. (But I could have and should have been an statistic.) Isn't that great?
Regardless of all of that, or actually because of all that, I got strong pretty quickly. In fact I got too strong. I got stubborn, defensive, rebellious and proud. I guess I had to, for a lot of reasons, but my strength came from myself and not from where it should have come. I didn't care, though, because I could take care of myself, and that worked just fine, thank you very much. I even celebrated it. I had framed on my wall for many years an original sketch by an artist that said, "When tears of rain fall, I take comfort in knowing that it's enough to be taken care of by myself."
How a child of God can get that far away from Him is another post. I won't go there now.
The fact is that I went along, being strong. That strength served its purpose well. I got through college with almost no help, got jobs where I was always in charge (huge surprise, huh?) and survived in a marriage where the spouse worked a lot. How could the strength that made all these things possible be a bad thing? It couldn't. Not at all. Right?
I can look back and see God start to bring down those proud walls years ago. Gently at first, with conviction and with soft things like safe women's Bible studies.
I didn't realize how far God would go to cripple me then, and I'm really glad I didn't. I think I would have scurried back to my safe world of narcissism and hedonism. You don't have to change much there, and you certainly don't have to venture outside of yourself.
It started with my miscarriage, I guess. So much of God's working in my life started with that morning when I realized I wasn't going to get to hold that baby. Not a monumental event to a lot of people on the outside looking in. I mean, people have miscarriages all the time. But for me, it was a lot. (Not to say it's not a lot for everyone. I know the pain is real for so many.)
I still miss that baby. Sometimes I still get the courage to tell God that I wanted that baby. I still mourn it, in so many ways. I still miss that sweet child. I can't bear to think that perhaps it was the baby girl that I longed for with all my heart.
I do know that whether He allowed my miscarriage to happen to set into motion the events that would wreck me, or whether it just happened because of sin and death and then He used it, I'm thankful. I'll never forget the moment that I stood before Him, sobbing, and He said, "We aren't moving from this spot until you tell me that you're thankful for this event."
You know. My miscarriage.
I still miss that baby. Sometimes I still get the courage to tell God that I wanted that baby. I still mourn it, in so many ways. I still miss that sweet child. I can't bear to think that perhaps it was the baby girl that I longed for with all my heart.
I do know that whether He allowed my miscarriage to happen to set into motion the events that would wreck me, or whether it just happened because of sin and death and then He used it, I'm thankful. I'll never forget the moment that I stood before Him, sobbing, and He said, "We aren't moving from this spot until you tell me that you're thankful for this event."
You know. My miscarriage.
That was hard.
Then. He wasn't done.
Then He asked me to thank Him for every hard thing that's ever happened. I'm not going to whine here, but I've been through some crap in my life. Hard, unfair crap. I had gotten to a point where I wasn't mad at Him for all that anymore. But He wanted me to thank Him for it all?
Then He asked me to thank Him for every hard thing that's ever happened. I'm not going to whine here, but I've been through some crap in my life. Hard, unfair crap. I had gotten to a point where I wasn't mad at Him for all that anymore. But He wanted me to thank Him for it all?
Every destructive annihilation that ever came my way, He wanted thanks for.
I've been sitting here for ten minutes and I can't type anything else. That was probably one of the hardest things I've even done with God. As He brought them to mind, I thanked Him for each of them, and asked Him to flip it into something that He could use to glorify Himself and make me more like Jesus.
Okay. Glad that part is over.
God got down to business then - sometimes at breakneck speed, sometimes at a snail's pace, but He started breaking me and rebuilding me. I was okay with this some days, angry others, but hungry for more of Him and desperate to be conformed to the image of His Son. No matter what.
You can be assured that if you ever seriously ask Him to break you, He will. By whatever means necessary.
So I bounced along, growing, stretching, being broken, slaughtered, dismembered, all the while trusting and trying to trust that God knew what He was doing.
And again this strength served me well. It would ring in my ears, "She's the strongest person I know..." Surely that strength was one of the traits that God treasured in me the most. Isn't that why He choose me for this insane process of refinement? Because I could withstand the flame?
I thought it was. I could see down the road of my life and see how the strength to leap tall towers and bend metal would benefit me greatly.
And then a day came where I just broke. It was weird. Suddenly nothing in me worked any more. No amount of boot strap pulling, no amount of sucking it up buttercup, no hanging in there, no gut checks, no amount of anything I have ever used before worked. I'll never forget it.
I was standing at the stove, cooking. I just had the thought, "This is where I end."
It was weird. I really meant it. It wasn't like a, "I just need to rest in Christ..." sort of moment. I've blogged about those before. This was a real, honest to goodness, "I'm done."
I wasn't scared. I felt oddly light. The only way I can describe it is to liken it to a super intense physical workout. The kind where you work harder then your body really knows how to. When it's over, your muscles feel light, almost unaffected by gravity-floaty, trembly and warm.
That's how my whole body, spirit and mind felt. Light and floaty. To say it was weird would be a tremendous understatement.
I had no choice but to float in God's grace. But it wasn't a good float. I kept thinking of my son, when I was trying to teach him to float on his back in the pool. He wanted so much to trust me, to release and let me support him while he relaxed all his limbs, but he couldn't. He would try and then he would sit up, almost drowning himself and me too. No amount of my convincing him would force him to relax into me. He just couldn't do it. I'd never dropped him in the pool before. I didn't deserve not to be trusted. It was something in him that wouldn't let me hold him completely.
Ah, see me in all of that? God was totally deserving of my trust. But I couldn't totally let go, even when I wanted to. Even when I said I had. And don't we all do that? Say we trust Him, but hold back a little sweet reserve for our self to give us some power still? Hanging on so that we still have something to cling to?
But, in me, He flipped off every temporal human strength like a light switch in one fell swoop. And I felt it, that moment, standing at the stove stirring something in a pot. Bam. It was all gone.
And I still haven't felt the same.
My friend, K, said it best. She said, "My skin even feels different."
Yep.
And here's the part of all of this where I say that once I was cut off from myself, God was able to go the next step with me.
And you say, "Duh. Of course..."
But here's the thing. I didn't know how to let go anymore. I had let go of so much. I knew there was more to do, but I couldn't do it. I didn't know how. It wasn't for lack of want. It was for lack of know how.
And that's when God stepped in and pulled the plug. Not when I asked Him to. Not when I wanted Him to. Now when I expected Him to. Not when I thought He should.
That afternoon, when I was stirring something on the stove. That's when He did it. In that seemingly jejune moment. That's the moment He chose.
So what's happened since then?
I've seen God's grace and goodness in ways that I've never seen them before in my life. I've seen things that defy explanation. I've felt and heard things that really aren't possible. I know things that shouldn't be known. And you know what? I think had He not pulled the plug on me, I wouldn't have felt or heard or seen or known.
I pondered, of stinking course, why I couldn't finish this post for so long. Usually I pound them out, misspellings and grammatical errors aplenty, and get them done. But this post wasn't complete. I didn't know on 9/29/10 what it all meant. And today I know 1/1,387,201th of what it all means. But isn't that they way God works?
So how does all this break down?
God broke me so He would refine me some more.
Nothing is the same. The world looks different. It feels different. I feel different. I feel like I got to take another step on this journey, but instead of being afraid and taking His hand, now I feel like I'm pulling Him down the path, begging Him to let us run ahead.
And
Isn't He good?
It was weird. I really meant it. It wasn't like a, "I just need to rest in Christ..." sort of moment. I've blogged about those before. This was a real, honest to goodness, "I'm done."
I wasn't scared. I felt oddly light. The only way I can describe it is to liken it to a super intense physical workout. The kind where you work harder then your body really knows how to. When it's over, your muscles feel light, almost unaffected by gravity-floaty, trembly and warm.
That's how my whole body, spirit and mind felt. Light and floaty. To say it was weird would be a tremendous understatement.
I had no choice but to float in God's grace. But it wasn't a good float. I kept thinking of my son, when I was trying to teach him to float on his back in the pool. He wanted so much to trust me, to release and let me support him while he relaxed all his limbs, but he couldn't. He would try and then he would sit up, almost drowning himself and me too. No amount of my convincing him would force him to relax into me. He just couldn't do it. I'd never dropped him in the pool before. I didn't deserve not to be trusted. It was something in him that wouldn't let me hold him completely.
Ah, see me in all of that? God was totally deserving of my trust. But I couldn't totally let go, even when I wanted to. Even when I said I had. And don't we all do that? Say we trust Him, but hold back a little sweet reserve for our self to give us some power still? Hanging on so that we still have something to cling to?
But, in me, He flipped off every temporal human strength like a light switch in one fell swoop. And I felt it, that moment, standing at the stove stirring something in a pot. Bam. It was all gone.
And I still haven't felt the same.
My friend, K, said it best. She said, "My skin even feels different."
Yep.
And here's the part of all of this where I say that once I was cut off from myself, God was able to go the next step with me.
And you say, "Duh. Of course..."
But here's the thing. I didn't know how to let go anymore. I had let go of so much. I knew there was more to do, but I couldn't do it. I didn't know how. It wasn't for lack of want. It was for lack of know how.
And that's when God stepped in and pulled the plug. Not when I asked Him to. Not when I wanted Him to. Now when I expected Him to. Not when I thought He should.
That afternoon, when I was stirring something on the stove. That's when He did it. In that seemingly jejune moment. That's the moment He chose.
So what's happened since then?
I've seen God's grace and goodness in ways that I've never seen them before in my life. I've seen things that defy explanation. I've felt and heard things that really aren't possible. I know things that shouldn't be known. And you know what? I think had He not pulled the plug on me, I wouldn't have felt or heard or seen or known.
I pondered, of stinking course, why I couldn't finish this post for so long. Usually I pound them out, misspellings and grammatical errors aplenty, and get them done. But this post wasn't complete. I didn't know on 9/29/10 what it all meant. And today I know 1/1,387,201th of what it all means. But isn't that they way God works?
So how does all this break down?
God broke me so He would refine me some more.
Nothing is the same. The world looks different. It feels different. I feel different. I feel like I got to take another step on this journey, but instead of being afraid and taking His hand, now I feel like I'm pulling Him down the path, begging Him to let us run ahead.
And
Isn't He good?
1 comment:
thanks. i love you.
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