Desert-a dry land. A dry season. One usually with little rainfall, extreme
heat, and sparse vegetation or harvest.
Last few months have definitely been that-a time of desert
where everything feels dry, where no matter how much I try to plant seeds of
new life and water them-no new life sprouts.
I have been broken down, confused,
weary, exhausted, and physically and spiritually worn. It’s been a process of
“redefining through the flame”. Just as a silversmith purifies silver by
putting it through the flame of intense heat, and sits and takes away all the
dross and impurities, he does not stop this process until he can see his reflection
clearly in the silver. This is the process Jesus has brought me through for the
past few months, and will continue to bring me through until I see His
reflection in the silver and not my own.
I found myself constantly wondering and asking God
when the
harvest of this desert season would come.
God spoke over me during these months in Romania, Moldova,
and Nepal words like “chipping away to get to the core”, “Come and listen”, and
“Beauty and Brokenness”. And those 3 months certainly lived up to the words
pertaining to the month it was spoken. I was confused and unsure of where my
identity lied, who I was, why I was on the Race and what God had in store. At
times I heard God speak or teach me about Himself through His word or through
my teammates love and encouragement and challenges for me.
But just as the seasons of weather change,
life does too and
there is always beauty to be found.
One day riding through cold wintery Moldova, God blessed me
with eyes to see His beauty in the seasons and I was marveled and amazed at
what I saw.
November
7, 2011
God
you are a true artist. I am amazed at the masterpiece you create day and night.
As you wake up the sun, she billows through the clouds and swirls a rainbow of
colors across the sky. By night she falls asleep again and swirls another
rainbow in the sky but this time to make way for the beauty for the moon and
starts that hang so brightly in the sky. You dress autumn leaves in the most
glorious and beautiful colors in preparation for death as they fall to the cold
ground and paint the town and cover the withering grass beneath. Winter follows
and icicles sparkle against the cold snow and frost the trees-reminding me that
there’s beauty everywhere. Spring showers make way for flowers and new life
burst out from the once frozen silent ground. Hot summers and cools nights
remind me of the joy of heat and the refreshment of cool breezes.
Such is true of the beauty of LIFE.
If I didn’t go through the hard “winter” or “desert”
times, it would not allow new life, new fruit, and a new generation to rise
from the season. And through it all, God has been teaching me through it all is
to embrace it. As Jim Elliot says “the important thing is to receive this
moments experience with both hands. Don’t waste it. Wherever you are, be all
there. Let not your longing for something or someone else slay the appetite of
actually living today”
As Apostle Paul writes about the happy certainty of heaven in Romans 5:3-5,
he goes on to say “this doesn’t mean, of course, that we have only a hope for
future joys-that we can be full of joy here and now even in our trials and troubles.
Taken in the right spirit these very things will give us patient endurance;
this in turn will develop a mature character, and a character of this sort
produces steady hope, a hope that will never disappoint us”.
Furthermore showing me that through embracing it all, God has taught me that no
matter the season of life I am in, I still
have a reason for JOY, I still have a
reason to praise Him; I still have
MANY blessings; and He is still
moving and speaking and doing crazy awesome things, even when I don’t feel Him
or feel at peace, comfortable or healthy; and there is a purpose in the trials and struggles which can produce a harvest of character…if I choose to embrace it.
BUT THIS DRY SEASON
HAS PASSED
and has made way for a new season of HARVEST.
Coming into India going
into India, God has spoken new things about this season:
freshness, boldness,
Intimacy, and worship.
Heck yes. Who’s
pumped? This girl.
