"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh." –Ezekiel 36:26
I figured things were fine. Not getting along with someone and being frustrated with someone on my team was okay. I mean everyone has someone they don’t get a long with at some point in their life. . .
But this was bigger than all of that.
My pride was an issue of my heart and I didn't want to let it go. I was frustrated and angry the day I had to sit down and have a mediated one on one, but it would change me. I sat down angry already walled up and ready to fight. I wanted to fight my cause, my wounds, my hurt, I wanted to save my pride. But that was just the problem, my pride was towering over the issues and i didn't want it to all come falling down. My pride had kept me from having a beautiful relationship with a team mate, a sister in Christ. My leader would rock my world that day. I cried and wanted to scream at the top of my lungs and run as far away as possible, but I couldn’t. I had to face the issue head on and it was embarrassing and shameful to know that I had sunk this low. I was drowning in my own selfish pride.
A week and a half later I laid awake on the floor where my bed was made. My mind was reeling and I was in a fight with myself. The hours were ticking by I had been laying there for 2 hours and my heart was being convicted.
What else do you want from me God?
I just wanted to sleep that night, but I couldn’t. My heart issue was still there and God was getting ready to operate on it. I felt like I had been laid out and every issue was surfacing. God was dealing with things one at a time. As I lay there that night, I was reminded of all of the friendships that I had my hand of pride in. I had slowly but surely ruined friendships with best friends, their family members, their friends . . . all for what?
PRIDE. MY PRIDE HAD GOTTEN IN THE WAY.
My own self pride had eaten way at me and I had allowed it to take bites out of other peoples lives. I knew I needed to fix things and went about writing messages and emails that next day. Things had to change and I needed to change myself.
This year I asked God to change me. To make me into a woman that was beautiful from the inside, one that people wanted to be around and call a friend. The beauty of God is that He listens and is always willing to change a heart that is open. This process has been the most painful for me. From opening up my past and sharing it with the world, to dealing with the little things like pride and seeing myself differently. He wants to take the wrong and make it right. I am so thankful that every person I wrote to was glad to hear to me and we are mending friendships now. God has really shown me that pride leads to a fall and it takes not only me, but others down with it. I have a love hate relationship with the difficult conversations. I hate hearing them and I hate the words that are said, but they are so needed because I love the redemption and restoration the Lord brings when we submit and change according to the words.
I struggled with pride, but God is renewing.
Later I would come to find out that one of my squad mate’s mom had a vision of me laying on an operating table. In the vision God was operating on my heart and removing the diseases that did not need to be there. That is such a beautiful picture because it was an image of what I was going through. I want to stay on the operating table until God has performed all that he needs to.
We have got to stop pretending that things are ok in our lives when they are not. We need to have the difficult conversations with each other so we can pray with each other and know that we are not the only one who struggles.
