Growth - When it Comes From the Unexpected
It is a crazy thing when you decide you want to expose yourself "on paper". I have sat and started typing so many times in the almost month it has been since I have posted.
The thing is, the moment you put yourself out there, you become more vulnerable. Am I being judged? What are people thinking? Is anyone even reading? Do they really understand my heart, my intentions?
I promised myself that I would not allow myself to fall into the enemy's trap of self doubt and self sabotage when I decided to "write". At the end of it all I was really doing this for me. I have always found comfort and it is almost cathartic to just "write" my thoughts and feelings....but then life. Life has a way of stopping us in our tracks and makes us question how open we want to be.
I want to honor and respect the people in my home so as I type I am always mindful of what I share and I always make sure it isn't going beyond the scope of their comfort zone. There are times that it can be difficult as I am natural purger, but this past year has been difficult in many ways...things have happened that I never saw coming, that I was not prepared for, that seem to just keep coming, that I have no CONTROL over.
There it is - CONTROL. It is hard to go through things that you can't figure out if He is working on you or if you are being refined as a consequence of someone you loves actions. I have asked myself so many times if I wasn't learning in my own refinement so He had to use someone I love to get to me... and then you just one day realize that sometimes, when you really love someone, that what they go through just affects you and everyone else around you and even though it isn't about you, it puts you through a learning process you were not prepared for, you did not plan for and you really have not control over.
To say I have been devastated by what has transpired over the past year would be accurate. To say that I have questioned everything is an understatement. To have things happen that you try to keep close, but in the end you can't always control that either, is difficult. No one wants everything to be in the open. As a parent we want to protect our children, to steer them and guide them and teach them and hope they listen and sometimes we can't - they make their own decisions and no matter how painful they may be to process, we have to know that their path is their path - not yours and though it intersects in your path, it doesn't always mean you can take the wheel for them and steer it the way you want. That is just the plain truth of it. You can't control what others choose to do. You can't control what He is doing in someone else's life. All you can do it learn to control your reactions, your attitude, how you deal with and process it.
In the end that really means giving up all control. It is easy to always blame the enemy. I mean isn't all the wrong in our life his fault? But the truth is, the only person that gives him the power to take hold of my fears/worries/anxieties is me. I am my own worst enemy. Realizing that was a truth bomb that I needed to hear and need to repeat regularly. 2 Timothy 1:7 teaches us that God did not give us a spirit of fear, but one of power, love and self control. The enemy wants us paralyzed, doubting, compromised, questioning...he wants us fearful because it is the doorway to grab a hold of us and spin us into a downward spiral of being overcome by negative thoughts, thinking, questioning the very truth we know to be true and the only way he can do that is if I give him that power.
Trust me. I have not mastered this from stopping. I was in tears thirty minutes ago with thoughts of fear so paralyzing, I could barely breath BUT then I stopped and remembered that no matter what happens today, HE is in the midst. It may not always feel like it, it may not always look like it, but He loves us so much that sometimes answering our prayers or cries in the way we want in the moment is not what is best for us or the person(s) we are crying out for. He knows more than we do. He sees the bigger picture and He is working even the hardest things of our lives for good. What the enemy means for evil, God will use it for His Glory and His Good.
He longs to make me into His image. He know that sometimes the deepest pains of our lives are necessary to form us into His image. Obedience to Him is a daily practice of trusting Him. Some days this is easy and some days this is hard because as a parent, I want to have my finger on that control button and in the end of it all, they are His before they were ours.
I can't deny the pain I have felt. The only path to healing is to recognize the pain and go to the Truth to find the healing and sometimes I have to do this over and over and over again.
I have grown more in the past few months then I have in years. It has come from an unexpected place. It has come from unexpected circumstances. It has come from some of the hardest things I have ever had to visibly see. It has come from choices that were not my own. But He is faithful. He has sent the right people, the right books, the timing of where I am in His Word, the perfect worship song, watching other believers walk through things I could not imagine...
When I am intentional about looking, seeking, searching and trying to shake off my SELF, I have been shown more then I could have imagined and it has shown me that when I let the blanket of my emotions take over, and let the enemy seep in, a fog forms around me that I can't always shake because I am not looking for the light. I have allowed so much darkness to speak into me and shroud me...and even as I grow and realize this, I still have moments, sometimes days that the emotions of what is happening around me brings the cloud...but I have put things into daily practice to be more aware and be more prepared. Is my plan perfect - no, but I am trying and I am working on being a woman who can stand up in the midst and walk through the storm with the knowledge that even if I can't see Him or feel Him, that He is in the midst just waiting for me to reach that moment....
He is the Potter and I am the clay...
Sometimes the rain has to come in like a flood to drive me back down to be reformed more into His image.
Sometimes there has to be a dry season so the clay thirsts for just the right amount of water to become pliable for the Potter to be able to work shape the clay.
Sometimes there are times where everything is just right and the Potter is able to use me and move me just the way He needs to, without the harshness of the flood or the dryness of the unknown.
As we age, the rains may come like a flood, or the season may seem dry and sometimes it feels like we are stuck halfway between one or the other, but the Potter is always watching, waiting and working in the midst.
