In The Fire

You know those hard times when it seems like you can't breathe? The times where it seems like God completely takes everything away from you? The times where you feel like you're falling and there's nothing to reach out and grab to stop your fall? That's how I've felt for the last five months of my life. One thing after another. So many of my tears have been shed. So many meals skipped or barely touched because of my lack of appetite. So many anxious thoughts. So many unanswered questions. I feel like David in Psalm 42. I LOVE David. He is so transparent. He talks in this chapter about how his soul is so downcast and disturbed. This is how he answers his own questions: 


"Why, my soul, are you downcast? 
   Why so disturbed within me? 
Put your hope in God, 
   for I will yet praise him, 
   my Savior and my God."


Oh, this has to be my prayer! I have nowhere else to turn. People only disappoint and let me down. Even the ones I love the most and thought I knew. How do people change so much? I guess that's one of the questions God only knows the answer to right now for me. I am so glad that God doesn't change. That reminds me of James 1:17


"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows."




This verse has always been one of my favorites. I'm so so thankful that my Father is consistent in all His ways. 


In spite of this hard time, I've learned so many things, especially things in me that are so ugly. I've learned that:


1. I am full of pride
2. I am very indecisive with big, life decisions. 
3. I cry...a LOT.
4. Sometimes I hold other people to standards that I don't even hold myself to.
5. I am not very patient and understanding.
6. Having a renewed mind is VERY difficult.
7. When I'm working through problems, I talk to way too many people about it. Sometimes I seek advice too much.
8. I think that my "thorn" in my side is anxiousness and worry.
9. When things get hard, I get very inward-focused.
10. I think, to a certain extent, I took my friends from home for granted. I miss them so much.


Wow. I have a lot to work on! I'm so glad that the Lord is showing me all this now instead of later. He's refining me. (And boy, do I have a lot to be refined!) I'm in the fire. But, just like Job said, 


"But he knows the way that I take;
   when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold." 


Oh, how I long to come forth as gold! I can't wait to come out the other side of this trial full of heartache and suffering, and to see all the Lord has shown me and made beautiful. 


He makes beautiful things out of dust!