He's teaching me ...

and some of the lessons have been a surprise.

You know what I mean ... there are things about ourselves we know

   I should always think twice before I speak, I should always think twice about the words I use when I'm angry, I should not text off the cuff because I 'misspeak", I should not be sarcastic because it almost always hurts someone, I should not let my hair get too long, I should not wear bubblegum pink, I shouldn't eat greasy foods late at night, ...


and then there are things that we have to come to know.

now that I have feelings that I let come to the surface, they are too quickly hurt, I have a terrible fear of being abandoned, I quickly assume the worst of most situations rather than the best, I don't believe I measure up, nor do I believe others believe that either, and I'm not invisible in my gray sweatshirt ...

these are things I've come to see as I have allowed the Lord to expose the dark places in my heart this past year. Things that as I've submitted to the Light of His Word have penetrated the deepest parts of my heart, showing a need for His Refining.

I've discovered that what I was seeing wasn't His reflection but the shadows of the past clouding my ability to move forward in what He's called me toward. And in the shadow is exactly how I felt sometimes ... like I was being chased my memories, nightmares, terrors, paranoia, stifling fear, doubt and unbelief.

I characterized my struggle in my prayer journal as just that 'running from the shadow' ...

yesterday as I was pouring through some pictures ...

I discovered something important ...

 where there's a shadow-

There has to be LIGHT.

Otherwise ... it's just darkness.

And that has been equally true this  year. As these things have come to the surface, the heat has been hot ... hot enough to create dross that the Father could skim off. Some days it seemed so hot that I thought I might crumble in the process. But just when I thought I'd had as much as I could take, the heat would turn up ... and then breakthrough. And comfort from His healing touch. Each time, weeks, days, hours or minutes would pass- and at just the moment that my heart was willing to agree with God's ... the rescue came.

Lord, please keep me teachable. I know how risky it is to ask that, but Lord, I really want to know you more ... I want very much to reflect Your heart ... and on my own, I simply can not accomplish that! And so I find myself in the most vulnerable of places ... and yet it the most safe place of all ...

funny I thought that vulnerable meant unsafe. And what it really means in Your hands is mailable. I considered soft as weak. What it means in Your hands is pliable.

What the world means for my bad, you create Your Good.
The depths of learning that keep pointing to the fact that Your thoughts are not my thoughts ...
and for the first time in my life, not knowing seems ok.