This week I started thinking about freedom and what that means to me. I look at my life now and compare it to when I was in high school throughout my early 20's. It was a particularly dark area for me. There was a period that I was suicidal. I was bitter and hopeless and lost. Not always, but enough to make me restless. I was however, all consumed by my ache. Nothing soothed it, covered it or made me forget it.
Things were constantly moving in my life. If anything tried to stay, I wouldn't let it. Mostly because I was so accustomed to change that I didn't trust anything that was still. I had no idea what to do with stillness. -Especially if it stopped to look me in the eye. What would it want? I had nothing to give.
At 16 I was saved at Brownsville Revival. (Google it sometime. It was incredible.) I felt like God singled me out and called me from the balcony. I'd never felt anything like it. I ran from the balcony, around half of the church and FLUNG myself on the alter. I drove home with the windows down and yelling at the top of my lungs. I was on Fire for God.
As soon as I got home, I went and got my bible. It opened to the parable of the lost sheep. (Luke 15). I noticed God speaking to me for the second time. I wanted to keep reading but wasn't sure what to read. So, I highlighted all of the "Verily, Verily" verses in my bible because I thought that they sounded funny. (Strange, I know). I couldn't wait to get back to that revival. I went every chance that I could. -For a season-
At 19 or 20, I discovered Joyce Meyer on TV and got hot on that. I started going to church again and was baptized at 21. But the heat cooled and life got busy. Little things started to replace that time. There were many other moments with God between then and now but truthfully, it wasn't until I later became pregnant with Ethan that I would allow myself to become uncomfortable for God. I committed to church regularly because I wasn't sure that I would be diligent enough to teach Ethan myself. I sincerely prayed for roots. I wanted something different but I just had no idea how to obtain it.
After a few years of that, I started also going to a weekly bible study at another church with a group of friends and coworkers. It was another commitment that carried me through a couple of years. The last study that I did with that group led me back to my own church completely.
I told God that I would accept the next need presented at church and I prayed that it wouldn't be with kids because they made me uncomfortable. God has a sense of humor. The very next Sunday, it was announced that there was a need for a lot of nursery and Sunday school teachers. I cringed and signed up. I knew that the commitment kept me coming back even when I wasn't feeling the "fire". When I became comfortable there, I was presented with a need to lead the Women's bible study group and I accepted that commitment as well. Now I am beginning this venture with no real knowledge of what is taking form.
I think to myself about the verse: Isaiah 43:19 "See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?"
As I pondered that verse, God is talking to me about spiritual growth and where I came from. Which led me to reading read a couple of articles about farm tilling. Soil is comprised of many living mechanisms. Several of the articles suggested that tilling can be too aggressive, damaging the roots to other surrounding plants and also damaging the soil. We try to hurry God along. "Get that good stuff in quick, so that I can get there already." But God is a Master Gardener. He knows what is needed, how much and when.
If he let me grow too fast my roots might not be big enough to support me. If he let me grow too soon, the soil might not be hearty enough to sustain me. Growth is a process. Sometimes, it happens so slowly, that we doubt that it is a possibility. There were years that I felt buried. Maybe God's "new thing" was breaking up a little of that dirt around me. Slowly. Tilling is not one of his methods. Maybe his next new thing was breaking up a little more. And again, a little more.
Maybe for those years that change didn't feel or seem evident around me, he was still cultivating the perfect soil for me. And then one day he planted a seed. A seed takes time to germinate. You and I could stare at the ground and be bored to tears waiting for life to break through. But it is happening. We might not see it. It's under the ground. A root is forming. A sprout is emerging.
I did pray for roots. I wanted to fit in my life. I wanted to know what was mine and learn to be still. God was answering my prayer(s). I grew roots in my family. I grew roots at my job. I grew roots in my church life but also in my faith. However, I also had a part to play in that. I had to commit. I had to consume his word when I had no appetite for it. I had to wait for his timing. Then I had to reach when it was uncomfortable. Layer upon layer he brought me up out of that darkness.
It makes me think about teaching a child to walk. We, the parents, just keep backing up an inch, in order to get the child to take another step forward until we get them where we want them to be. In reaching for him, he was able to move me. If 'I' never reached beyond my comfort zone then I would never experience a "breakthrough". Surely he is the master of the universe and could've handed it all over to me or fixed my every problem but then I would never learn the impact of my actions. -The power of my decisions.
Anyone particularly close to me knows that I've felt like I been in a transformation for the last 3 years. There was a shift happening. It was very unsettling to me. I had no idea what or when or where. I repeatedly thought it was my job because I didn't know what else it could've been. I couldn't explain it if I tried. However, these last 3 years have been when I have gotten outside of my comfort zone for God, committing in any way that I knew how.
In my most silly voice, I think to myself- "Was I germinating?" (You can snicker a little. I like that.) But my heart really stops to consider it. I felt like things were coming apart. The husk was breaking. My protective layer was falling away and all of that newness was culminating into one purpose and it was springing forth. As much as I was reaching out, he was sending in. I was being transformed.
The last few months I've felt him pull up roots. Not all of them and I don't know specifically which ones. Nothing physically has changed. Spiritually he is realigning me. This is a growing and a settling season for me. He wants me to go deeper but he is calling me to rise.
"Rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. (Colossians 2:7 NIV84)"
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