Monday, May 1, 2017

Piece by piece

When I go out for my walk in the morning, I use my son's ipod and pull up my "You Are Free" playlist. Depending on how long I am walking, I know exactly where to start it. This playlist has also been my 'go to' when I clean so that my least favorite activity is considerably more tolerable.

Natalie Grant's Clean is on that list. I love this song more than I could ever express. Trying to grasp that Jesus has made me of all people clean through His blood is beyond description. Recently a particular part of the song that has been feeding my soul with much needed comfort. At the end of the first and second verses, she passionately sings, "You're restoring me piece by piece."

It's not been a secret on this blog that God has been up to a pretty major overhaul of my heart and mind. I became very intentional about this towards the latter part of 2016. I knew that if I didn't want to die with all of the insecurities and incorrect ways of thinking I was prone to, I had to do something. Not that I can fix it myself, but my intentional actions of seeking God is what He needs to do what He does best. He promises that we will find Him when we seek Him with all of our hearts, and I can't seek Him with all of my heart unless I give Him all the broken shards so He can put them back together piece by piece.

But lately I've found myself frustrated because I thought I would be much further along than I am. As I prayed about what to write today, the Natalie Grant song came to mind with the realization our God is a God of order not chaos. And if He who created the earth and all that is in it in six days was deliberate and intentional about the timing of what He was forming, then the re-forming of my heart would be no different. There are reasons some pieces have been put back together before others, and that if He is building it to be functional for the long haul, I just need to be okay with what He's accomplished so far.

I'm sharing this with you now because all of us have parts of our lives that we desperately want to have redeemed or restored. Whether it's a past hurt, a fresh wound, or a persistent ache that causes a numbing pain, we must trust that His order of restoration is purposeful. He knows why things need to happen in a certain sequence because He knows how our hearts and minds can process the coming transformation best.

Slowly but surely I get glimpses of things that are just a bit different than they were the last time I looked. I know that He is going to finish what He started and that all of this has a purpose in fulfilling His mission. And my inclusion in that leaves me in awe that not only I am worthy of being called, but that in the end I will be blessed by the journey.

Father, we know that You are working all of this out and that Your plan is for our good. Help us to not just give you the pieces that need to be mended, but to trust You with the order in which you fix them. We love you. Amen.

 

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