Today's the day! Whew!
I flew out of Boston this morning, and I am currently in the airport at Washington DC, getting ready to meet up with my teammates in a few hours. The past few weeks have been a blur of chores, errands, boxes, and goodbyes. But how do I feel? everyone asks. Honestly, I don't feel much of anything at all. Someone told me it's because I'm disassociating my feelings. Maybe that's true. Someone else said that this is because it hasn't hit me yet. Maybe that's true as well. Honestly, It surprises me too, to think that I'm departing on the biggest adventure of my life, leaving all that I know behind, and yet I don't have any emotions. There's a lot of peace, and I'm just…here.
The past few weeks, God has been putting this verse on my heart – "Yet, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay; you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand." (Isaiah 64:8)
And when I take time to stop and think about it, it makes a lot of sense that I am where I am emotionally.
In order to make a pot out of clay, the potter must first knead the clay to remove all air bubbles and impurities. Then, once a pot has been sculpted, you cannot just simply make a new pot. You must take the old pot and put it all back into a ball, smoothing and kneading it so that there is no evidence of the old remaining.
I am that ball of clay, smoothed all around, ready to be sculpted afresh.
I am a blank piece of canvas, waiting to be painted on.
I am the last page in a chapter, ready to be turned over to discover what is next.
In all of these there is a period of nothingness, of blankness, of waiting. And I'm starting to realize that this is how God has always worked. He is in the business of turning nothing into something.
It's the same thing that happened at the very beginning of time, when the earth was formless and void. I like the way the Message version puts it: "Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness. God's Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss…(Genesis 1:1-2)
Then BAM! God spoke, saying "Let there be light!" and light appeared from the darkness, piercing brightly into the nothingness.
Just as the Earth was formless and void, as He spoke light came into being, I'm learning that we must become formless and void before God can birth new things in our hearts and in our lives.
I feel like I am becoming a new pot; that a new chapter is being written. It is for this reason that I cut my hair last week; symbolic of the new person I am becoming. I've been listening to this song lately –
In it, Gungor sings, "You make beautiful things. You make beautiful things out of the dust. You make beautiful things. You make beautiful things out of us. You make me new, You are making me new."
Thank you, God, for making me new, for your ability to turn nothing into something. Mold me, shape me, transform me into a representation of your son Jesus. I love you so much. Amen.
