Breaking the Silence

I’m breaking the silence.  Even as I sit here and type this it takes everything inside
of me to share.  It shatters my
pride into a thousand pieces to share what has been going on in my heart.  I have been distant, detached, and
introspective while processing all the ways that I am being challenged.  I am in the desert, in the refiners
fire, in the valley:  in a single
word- BROKEN.

The truth is I am dying. Don’t worry Mom, not a physical
death of any kind.  I am dying to
myself: my rights, my pride, my selfishness, my desire to be right, my
opinion.  The race is a pressure
cooker situation in which the best and worst parts of ourselves have the
ability to peak their little heads out. 
The beauty of it all is that God is refining me, showing me the ugly parts
he never intended to be there and desires to give me freedom.  Freedom from people pleasing, freedom
from my self-serving attitude, freedom from my critical heart. 

Hosea 2:14 reads:

“Therefore I am now going to allure her, I will lead her
into the desert and speak tenderly to
her. There I will giver her back her vineyards and will make the Valley of
Achor (means trouble) a door of hope.“

This is exactly what God is doing in me.  Yes, I am in the desert and make no
mistake it is a HARD place to be.  But God, who loves me more than I could imagine (despite all
my junk) is speaking to me there. 
Not only is he speaking, but He is tender with His words.  He is lovingly restoring my joy that
comes from within.  He is restoring
my hope, peace, and love that overflows from the depths of my soul. 

More and more I am learning to rejoice in this time.  Although it is hard, God loves me
enough to refine me.  Let that sink
in.  He loves us enough to refine
us.  Loves me enough to push,
stretch, and grow me into the woman of he created me to be.  God doesn’t desire us to live inside
the struggle.  His desire is that
we are victorious in it.  That is
what I hold onto, that is what I fix my eyes on, and that is where I find my
hope.