redeemed and being redeemed

I wish I could report that I was not the one on the downward spiral of destruction.  But I rather be honest than a fake.

I had all these circumstances piling up against me.  I won’t list them all, as it might depress even you, but trust me it was/is still long. I had a lot coming at me and my response was Help!!  Deliver me!!  Help me….but that was not happening.  Instead it felt like the storm intensified!  So much for help, I thought.

Hitting rock bottom I realized I do not think God cares or hears or is with me.  Oh, I can see He is around me, working in others lives, helping them, etc but not in mine.  I was blinded by lies. But so far gone that lies became truth and truth became lies.

I was not letting God use any of these things to shape my life into something beautiful.  I became bitter, distraught and depressed. It was all too much.

We are going through a course by Dr Bruce Wilkinson with our boys, entitled The Testing of your Faith. I know it well, have gone through it a few times, but as I sat there and listened the Holy Spirit showed me that I am in a huge test of faith. As Dr W named the things you should never doubt when in a test I could tick them off one by one – unfortunately a negative kind of tick mark…So, I realized this was definitely my test.

In a test of faith God usually wants you to pass the test and work on things you don’t believe about Him.  What was my test about?  What did all of these things have in common?

Well, for one I did not believe God was caring for me as a woman out here in the sticks. I felt it is all good and well being a boy or a man here but a woman?  Not so easy. I also did not think God knew what I needed – I have been praying for a good friend for years, one that knows what you are thinking before you say it, one who I can just sit and be without a lot of words. Nothing coming.  Even though there were some, because of others it also did not work out (and I was blaming people here!) In any case so my sad list went on.  All in all it boiled own to the fact that I did not trust God for me. I trusted Him for my husband, my kids, the unbelievers around me and I saw many ways in which he did just that – care for them, intervene, save, help, etc! But for me, not so much and mainly because I was not letting Him for several very real (to my mind) reasons.

I lost trust because I was asking God’s help but prescribing how He should go about it.  I think I tried explaining that in the previous post.  This was not helping me at all, as I was losing hope and fast.

I needed to trust God regardless of the outcome. That was hard for me.  As I prayed one morning I had this picture of me clinging unto a cliff.  I was shouting for help!  I was desperately waiting for someone to recue me, throw me a rope, get a better grip on the rocks, anything really!  But God was gently asking me to jump. 

Yip, jump down in to water.  So I declined as there might be sharp rocks or crocs or who knows what down there!  Not trusting I still clung.

Quite a picture!  I had to trust in God for everything and then trust Him some more not to harm me as I trusted Him.  Does any of this make sense?   To me it did!

My solutions to the problems were in not thinking up solutions - it was to trust God to use every one of these difficulties, disappointments and problems to shape my into the image of Jesus.  I had to let go and trust that all these things were for my good if I let God use them.

Jerry Sittser in his book, A Grace Revealed says it perfectly:

I belong to God.  He will not let me go. In Philippians 2 it says: "for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill His good purposes." God was bringing all these things together - literally piling them up to make me see something huge that was harming me. God had me all this time in His hand, never once letting me go. Wanting to make me into something beautiful glorifying to Him! Rather than asking - why,oh why, me? I am asking how can God use this to make me more into the likeness of His son.  For sure, i have a long way to go, but i am on my way or actually more correctly, on God's way.

So i let go of the cliff, jumped and i fell into wonderful calm waters, save and sound, trusting.

bella, redeemed and being redeemed.