I talk a lot about processes and seasons because that is how God best reveals Himself to me. It is only after He took away religion and gave me a relationship that I got to learn how to hear Him and speak to Him more, not only as my King, Savior, God, Mighty Man of War, and all that He is to me, but to know Him more than a friend. A while back, I was in my room praying and I told God that I wanted to live for Him alone, without distractions.
I told him I wanted him to work on me and make me more like him. People don’t understand that you can be broken on the inside, yet everything else seems to be going on well on the outside.
Very few people know what it’s like to go to bed and still wake up tired because, in your mind and in your soul, you were fighting battles that only God knows about. It is one thing to fight battles externally, but it is another thing to fight them internally. You see, externally, you have the opportunity to walk away from the fight, but when it is internal, you cannot leave yourself. Everywhere you go and in everything you do, you still feel the conflict on the inside.
So as soon as I made the prayer, one thing I am certain of is God answered me when I was still speaking. He immediately enrolled me in his school and began teaching me things that, in retrospect, I needed to know but did not want to know at the time.He brought someone into my life who was an exact image of me. He talked like me, thought like me, acted the way I did. I mean, we could even almost finish each other’s sentences and at first this was beautiful until the negative things started to crop up. He would say some really mean things to me that made me save, as I was willing to cuss him out.
His words would sometimes hurt so much that I started doubting myself and started feeling unworthy. Night after night, I would ask God to please allow me to leave because that was not what I had bargained for, but He told me again and again that it was my character that needed to be worked on. He wanted to show me what real love is and what it’s not. He wanted to help me deal with the issues that were so deeply hidden in my heart that only through such a process would they come out.
During that time, I did not feel saved. I felt rejected and alone and it pained me deeply. All the things I thought I knew and had were shaken to the core. I would sit alone in my room and break down each time I wanted to pray, because I knew what I wanted to tell God, but I just didn’t have the words to say it. So I let my tears do the talking. Slowly but surely my heart started becoming really soft to God’s touch. The tears washed away all the poison that was in my heart that had accumulated over the years that was caused by the issues and things that had happened in my life that I had blocked away and refused to deal with.
God used this one person to bring all that out. I did not know just how much baggage I had until God revealed it to me and helped me unpack. The rejection pushed me in the direction I needed to go and the brokenness brought me before Jesus who took care of it.
I later learnt two very important lessons from all that. One was as sad as it was that I had always been a quitter. I was always that girl who left at the first sign of trouble, and this is something that God really wanted to change about me. He wanted to show me that nothing good comes easily, and therefore, if I continued quitting on everything that seemed uncomfortable, then I would never get to where he wanted me to be. The other lesson that he wanted to teach me was about love. The version I had of love was pretty messed up and carnal, and he wanted to change that and put his definition of love in my heart.
(According to 1 Corinthians 13:4–7) Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Looking back, I would not have had it any other way. God renewed and is still renewing my mind with his word and his love on a daily basis.
He has taught me that salvation is not about feeling saved, it's about being saved. He taught me how to love and be loved, how to truly appreciate those that truly love me and to never take them for granted. He also taught me the importance of knowing when I should walk away from things and people and when I should stay.
Most importantly, I learnt that it is only God who can allow and put you through that kind of hurt and bring you out a much better person.
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