Growing Pains

This is a pretty long one, i know, I mostly wrote it for me becasue i needed to get the thoughts/reflection into words. I hope you do read it though and can get something out of it. And if you start reading you MUST continue to the end - it's like a rule! Come on! :) Grace and Peace.

God’s timing is PERFECT and He is always holy and just. The past two weeks have been rather testy but they have also offered me an exciting and tough growing experience. Better put – I’ve been having some growing pains. This entire post really ties into what I have been learning in my self-confrontation class: confronting yourself and you sin, understanding the GRACE (you know I love, love, love that word!) and MERCY of God, dealing with your selfish heart, and out of your love and understanding of God, being obedient to Him as you confront yourself in all of these areas. (Whoo! Take a breath Em!) Some of you know that I am transferring to a Baptist school in Georgia for this upcoming fall semester of school. Four-hundred miles away from my family, a six and a half hour drive, no Sonny’s, no mall, no PUBLIX, just the small town of Cleveland- population: not enough people to count….okay, so I’m way over reacting here, I know. Anyway, I plan to write about this sometime in the near future, but it has been a HUGE work of God in simply providing for me to attend TMC and an even longer road of accepting God’s will for my life. Exciting, I know! Just recently, I attended a “pre-registration/orientation” at Truett. What I had planned on being an ordinary drive up to the school, the average orientation experience, ended up being a weekend that literally changed my life. No, no – not the type of ‘experience’ you get when you return from youth camp. I’m talking about when God literally rips out of you every ounce of the nothing that you truly are and tells you to look into HIS face because He has covered all of your sins and HE is enough, for everything. It was intense. I’ll spare you the details, as I often do, but I was confronted with a situation that really tested my emotions, nagged at my spirit, and crushed my sense of self. This was a good thing – you’ll see. The situation was not pretty. It was one of the most out of the blue experiences I have ever faced in my life and was definitely something I wouldn’t recommend for any of you. As soon as the situation came to my attention I was faced with anger, selfishness, pride and a load of other self-centered emotions. As it continued to surface – I began to realize that all of these emotions, actions, thoughts and feelings were doing me absolutely no good. There was no argument, there was no winner. There was me, my heart, and God. This was the team – all of our players were in the game and there were no members on the bench. I will never forget this moment. Tears POURING out of my face as I sat on the hotel bed, mom on one side, dad across the room. I was hurt. I felt as I had been the victim of a situation, forgiveness was not something I wanted and restoration – the very thought made me want to throw up. But something inside of me knew that wasn’t the answer.(aka. JESUS) I asked my parents about forgiveness. I didn’t want to but I knew that if I was going to be obedient to Christ, forgiveness was something I had to get straightened out in my own heart immediately. If I was going to be obedient to the word of God and DENY myself, take up my cross and follow Him, restoration was something that I needed to aim for immediately. (Matthew 5:23-24) I confronted myself with the truth (Matthew 7:1-5) and got my heart straightened out. As we sat there and lifted our voices to God – the presence of the Lord was amazing. As I prayed I was reminded that the situation, the exact moment did not take God by surprise. I was reminded of Paul as I prayed – how he counted it as gain to suffer for the cause of Christ. My suffering was nothing in comparison to Paul’s and I feel almost sacrilegious for comparing it to Christ’s suffering on earth – but Jesus was accused, beaten, spat upon and hated. When He was in the garden, he asked His Father to let this cup pass but He prayed for His Father’s will instead of His own. This is where I felt the comparison I suppose. I did not want to do what He wanted me to do. But out of an obedience and love for the one who sacrificed for me – the choice was simple, there was only one option: love and forgiveness. My heart was tested, my obedience was tested. The result – not a ‘mountain top’ experience, the situation isn’t even resolved. But there is love in my heart and God has grown me and changed me and conformed me closer, oh – but still so far, to the image of His Son. (Amazing…) A shout out to my mom and dad for giving great Godly wisdom and advice.