New life...

What’s on my mind tonight is…pregnancy and new life.  I was thinking about how when you reach those last several weeks of pregnancy…the weight of the pregnancy can just be overwhelming…your body aches and you are tired...you can’t get comfortable…you can even get to the point where everything you eat makes you feel a little sick. 

And what comes next…labor and birth – those are painful!  Labor pains will make you forget all about the pain you had the week before and not being able to find a comfortable position so you can sleep.  But there is a purpose to it…a brand new life.  All of this pain...weeks of it, sometimes months…has a purpose, and it brings this new life into the world.

I’m thinking of how much this is like the struggle to overcome…well…so many things.  A bad habit, sin, negative behavior, addiction, offense, you name it.  You start out (sometimes) so excited and pumped to make this change in your life…and near the end you might be kicking and screaming…wondering who’s idea this was anyway.  But the reality is, change in my life is up to me.  There is really nothing that another person can do to force me to change…and God certainly isn’t going to force me.  So sometimes when I get to that point of looking around and wondering who’s bright idea all this was…I just have to look in the mirror.

I started out 2013 praying this prayer, fully desiring it in my heart “God, change my heart to be what you want it to be…mold me into the person you want me to be”.  And then things started kind of falling apart in April…and then by July things were really falling apart.  I was not in a good place for a few months and I didn’t really talk to anyone about it.  I went to a church conference one night and the speaker stopped while he was talking, pointed me out and told me “what you are going through right now, you asked God for this.”  I thought he was crazy and my face probably told him that…he encouraged me to ask God right then to show me…so I just stopped for a second and asked God…”if this is true, please show me” and immediately I was watching myself pray that prayer asking God to mold me into the person he wanted me to be.

I was blown away because I had spent the last 3 months angry and really kind of fighting God…I wasn’t doing anything to help this change along…in fact I was holding onto the old me, digging my nails and in and fighting with all I had to stay there.  So I started praying for God to show me how I could work *with* him on this.  After all…he was just setting up opportunities for me to grow and change into the person I wanted to be…which was the person HE wanted me to be.  So I made a decision the next day to be intentional with my actions in partnering with God on this. 

It was painful, it wasn’t easy…but the depression and anger lifted and I found joy again.  What happened was…I reached the difficult stage of the “pregnancy” and I just stopped…so it’s basically like (in my view) I caused myself to have to spend 3-4 months at that most uncomfortable stage of the pregnancy…refusing to birth the new life that was waiting to come.  Obviously, this isn’t possible with a physical pregnancy…but it is very possible with a spiritual one :) 

I really should be asleep right now…but I felt like this was important to share right now.  Overcoming is a journey, one that I’m still on.  One thing I have learned (without a doubt) is that when I am actively searching my heart for anything that doesn’t bring God glory…anything that brings me down, etc…I will find ugly things that I would sometimes rather not look at – BUT – another thing I have learned (without a doubt!!!) is that God’s love for me is so much bigger than those ugly things.  So much bigger that they are like dust to be blown away.  His love can overcome…and he can redeem anything!