It overtakes you suddenly, swiftly gripping you in its icy clutches.
Unexpected, the natural world slows and everything that is not in front of you disappears.
Tears streaming down your face, your body convulses as you gasp for air—but, none comes.
The internal struggle—you want to run for escape and fall unmoving to the floor—neither happens.
You look up to the heavens in a broken attempt to cry out, but no words can be formed. Only gut-wrenching sobs.
Your head drops to your arms. The tears that were falling slow, as exhaustion sets in.
And in the quiet interlude, you hear the whisper:
“My child…oh, my child…I am here.”
“I am holding you. …breathe… me in. …rest… embrace the gold.”
I was expecting a miracle.
And the miracle came…just not the miracle I was wanting.
What came instead was the miracle of my transformation—of my heart change. I was so focused on the miracle I was convinced needed to happen, that it blindsided me. Yet, after the initial impact, after my blurry eyes focused and after my staggering steps steadied, clarity came.
Refinement.
Weeks ago, the Lord granted me a vision. My fragmented journal entry reads:
Gold. Shimmering gold nugget that is now my heart. No longer dull, covered in the filth of the world. The gold will continue to grow until my heart has reached the size it was meant to be, then the molten gold begins to coat all of me until I am fully golden—a shimmering, glowing, radiant being.
Days ago, these words were prophesied over me:
I received a miracle. The splintered pieces of pain fall around me and through it all I see—it was me. It was my expectations. It was my walls. It was my tight grip. I received a miracle of refinement, a miracle of release, a miracle of joy, a miracle of open hands.
I will embrace the gold from these ashes of my sin. I will embrace the miracle. I will embrace this beautiful picture of transformation granted to me by the God of unceasing mercy and grace.
