A New Year Dawning

Over the holidays, I reflected on 2013 as it drew to a close like a curtained finale. It was a year of discovery, pain, awakening, heart ache, joy, chastening, growth, and learning how to rise from the ashes called “past.”

As difficult and heart-wrenching as some of the events have been, I wouldn’t trade the life-lessons for all the mundane peace on this earth. Don’t get me wrong – Peace is great! It’s an oasis. However, it does little to transform us into the image of Christ.

Pain, self-reflection, and time soaking in His presence brings pruning that leads to growth. Growth leads to wisdom. Wisdom leads to transformation. All of these lead to the Peace that passes understanding – the peace that guards our hearts and minds in Christ. It’s a roundabout way to get to His Peace; but once there, you notice spiritual muscles that weren’t present when the journey began.

What did last year change in you? Are you closer to His presence? Are your spiritual muscles stronger? Or have you stepped away from your journey willing yourself into the life you think you want?

I am grateful and thankful for all the pain of my past. ALL of it!

The molestation? Yes!

The betrayals? Yup!

The crushing end to a marriage and the fallout? Sure thing!

Heartache, loss, and walking away from the alter of sacrifice? Absolutely!

These things brought me face to face with the Creator of the universe. Tragedies showed me His love, comfort, and care and heart-wrenching situations showed me the way out from desert wandering. These opportunities provided the ashes needed for a magnificent sweet-smelling garden and the peaceable fruit of Righteousness that I would never have found without them.

When we get to know our Beloved in a deeper way, these occasions are not wasted. They are gifts. We just don’t like the wrapping.

As a curtain opens on this new year, I rise from ashes and walk out of the desert into new opportunities for growth and deeper digging at His well.

Will you walk beside me?

Does God Re-Gift?

The Blessing of Pain’s Work, Part II

Gift giving season is upon us. This is my FAVORITE time of year! My children are under the same roof, lots of fun food, movies, laughter, presents and TIME. Just to have time as a family is sacred and precious to me.

Then there are Christmas parties with fun, food, laughter, and the inevitable elephant gift game. I’m always looking through my house for an old, unopened gift that was passed on to me at another party. I was pondering such things when the Lord clearly said, “I re-gift”.

He had my attention. “You? Re-gift? What could you possibly re-gift, Lord, “ I asked.

“Your past,” He answered.

I don’t know about anyone else, but my past has some painful stuff in it and I would NOT want to open it again. Instead of visions of sugar plums dancing in my head, I had visions of me sitting at His Christmas tree with great anticipation as He hands me a beautiful silver-papered box with white tulle. I rip it open and look into His eyes with excitement as I tear open the box…only to see molestation. Shocked and confused, I grab another beautifully wrapped gift; this one has red shiny paper and a big white bow - betrayal.

This isn’t how I envision God’s gifts to me.

So I asked, “What do you mean by that Lord?”

He responded, “I give my children the gift of their past through My eyes and My perspective…if they are willing to accept it.” Ah, there it is…the caveat that we hear from our Lord so often - if they are willing to accept it. I reflected on what the Lord has brought me through. The last four years have been filled with naval staring, crying, reflection, therapy, more naval staring, and one thing I definitely have now is a new perspective.

I couldn’t tell anyone why the Lord allowed me to walk my walk, but one thing I can tell is the more I give Him burdens, hurts, pain, heartache, betrayal and my past mistakes, the more He teaches me about myself and about Him. I see parts of myself I never saw before. Gifts, hopes, dreams and wisdom gained and learned from my past - they are all there wrapped in beautiful, Holy paper - if I want to unwrap it.

So now when I unwrap my past I see it through His eyes and His perspective. In my beautifully wrapped past I see re-gifted molestation that looks a lot like a deep compassion and understanding about how one wounded person can wound another. In the re-gifted betrayal, I see redemption and deep understanding of forgiveness.  I now understand how to love a betrayer through my Savior’s heart. I see beautiful things rising out of the ashes that could not have grown without my past to fertilize and nurture it. I have compassion, understanding, and wisdom that I never had without my history reflected in His perspective.

So yes, God re-gifts. Are you willing to open it?

The Gift of Pain, Part I

To everything there is a season. A time for every purpose under heaven…Ecclesiastes 3:1

Christmas is coming. Have you noticed it arrives quicker every year? I remember as a kid the anxious anticipation of gazing at my packages under the tree and keeping my hands in my robe pockets for fear they would find their way to the ribbon before breakfast. That was a hard and fast rule in our house. Absolutely NO opening packages until we’d had breakfast.

Before I was able to figure out a gift by its shape and the way it rattled, I would tear into each one thinking “this is the gift I asked for,” or “I bet this is the toy I wanted.” Then with great disappointment, I found socks - or my personal favorite - underwear. I didn’t care that it was practical. I didn’t care that I needed it. It wasn’t what I’d wanted or hoped for.

Pain is a lot like that. It isn’t what we want. It isn’t what we’d hoped for. But it is sometimes necessary.

And it is a gift.

I had a teacher in middle school I never liked, Mr. Fowler. He was old, grumpy, he never smiled, and he wore a bow tie. Yes…a bow tie. Every day. He was my math teacher so it was a subject I already hated, so Mr. Fowler made it more…hateful. But he was a patient, long-suffering instructor. He would work with me until I understood. He wanted me to untangle a problem, understand, and learn. Mr. Fowler was a gift to a little girl that didn’t understand math.

Pain is like that. We hate it. We don’t want it. We try to run from it. But pain, like Mr. Fowler, is a perfect instructor. There are many examples in the Word of our Father using pain to instruct His children and not because He is mean or grumpy. Sometimes our own disobedience or a bad choice brings it on, or even situations we have no part in, like the death of a loved one or a job lay-off.

Whatever the circumstance, pain is an unwelcome friend and an effective instructor enclosed in a package we must unwrap sometimes. Why? 

Because it brings correction when needed, direction when sought, focus and clarity when pressed into; It gets our attention, and that is just the beginning.