Again another situation arose and I would need to ask someone to cover a task that my husband and I do... the response came back quick and full of grace... "of course."
And I was stunned... as I lay there looking at the response I realized I was stunned... stunned by the graciousness of this man... and I thought about other times and places recently where I had been extended grace by another not because they had to but because it was genuinely within them...
As I sat still and allowed all that the morning was bringing to be brought wave after wave flooded me .. In this season the days are full and beyond full.... I sat to realize that the intensity of this season is teaching me numerous lessons.... The two of which that struck me this morning were that the pressure cooker aspect of this season was granting unto me numerous opportunities to live according to the ways of our God while the storms rage.... to choose Him and His thoughts and His truth and not go with the knee jerk reaction of flesh or soul.....
The other thing I realized today is that the intensity and longevity of this season is like a long boil and the scum is coming to the surface... Day after day the schedule is full and there are more things to do within every day that can ever get done... A time of transition that has already been in the making since last Fall and will carry itself out through even next Summer.... nothing to grasp a hold of and feel the rumbling of the earth cease...
I have realized for a while that this season could and should be likened to a pressure cooker but hadn't understood all that was transpiring and even now am sure I don't....
The continual shock of receiving grace from another human being brought me to my knees... looking upwards and asking questions.. and answers came... plenty of answers came and then more of the scum that had been deep within me arose... it had been loosened by the long slow boiling process and was arising to the surface... the pressure cooker was bringing to pass the quickening of the process and all this emotion and all this judgement that was within me was coming too....
Oh God.. I repent for this and I am so sorry for that.... repented for judgements made towards others thinking I had understood their predicament and had judged them for not making other decisions... This season has held a lot of that.... many a realization ... many a deeper understanding of living life and choices that are made....
Then as if the boiling water had finally loosened bed rock ... picture after picture came... decisions of others that had so affected my life erupted within me... the reality of being raised with a woman who was my mother's mother .. she had lived with us all my life and had no joy within her.. she had misery and anger and her own pain and hurt and disappointments... the answers to some of the why do I think that way? Or why am I still so surprised by kindness towards me?
BUT...
It wasn't the events that our God was dealing with .. it wasn't about the circumstances I had been raised within .. this morning it was about my responses to those things and it was ugly... just like the scum that arises after a long slow boil... what became even uglier for a few minutes was the way I was looking at God.. I embrace forgiveness and repentance and yet there within the scum was a pain that had thought it was entitled ... entitled to judge... legitimate in my conclusions of who those people were and an anger so deep that it tore through me....
And I knew where He was leading me .. He had started with the easier ones and then .. then the wall that had stood for so long was hit as if a dam had broken and the surge was raging forward... this.. this my friends is a most beautiful picture of our God.... As I think upon it I am brought to my knees at His pursuit and passion..... A wall had stood for a long time... and it had protected me well and it had served me well but it had been inhibiting me for a while now and He knew it.. He knew it... This season with all that is within it became the perfect orchestration of life and God and past and present and His glory being unleashed upon my life and my days.....His thoughts and His opinions and His declarations that it was for life that He had come and abundant life at that rushed towards that wall and with beauty and strength and grace and mercy the waters of His spirit fell and it wasn't broken down.. it wasn't torn apart... it simply was not there any longer...
And again I saw .. this season.. this season and the long slow boil .. the meat had just come off the bones effortlessly... the way He had been leading me for weeks now.. for months now... repent for this... look at that... see this... that behavior really isn't you... Here are my ways.. Here is my truth.. take my hand here... let me lead you there...
All of it... the pressure cooker .... the slow boil... the days in and the days out... moment after moment... He had not come in as one demanding... but wooing... He had not come in seeking His own even though He knew that His own ways were better and higher and would profit me far more than my own... He came in with desire and compassion... He came in with understanding beyond what I can comprehend.. He came in and came in and came in and came in and came in... all the while taking ground ..
A picture of the promise land being granted but bit by bit so as not to be overrun but to empowered to govern..... under His care and His direction and His mercy and His compassion and His grace and His wisdom and His fathering ... I stand in a place .. in this season so beyond moved by all that He is... so thoroughly convinced of His kindness..
His ways are beyond my capacity to express .. but I am one who is so thoroughly grateful for all His ways...
1 comment:
Thank you so much for your openness in sharing with us. I sense I am going through my own long slow boil right now, have not yet identified the scum, but know that the Lord in His goodness will use upcoming events to bring it to the surface.
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