Change

I can feel the joy of the LORD most acutely when I am faced with extreme emotional pain. Maybe you've experienced the same thing. These are the times that remind me that Jesus is the desire of my heart and He can never be taken from me. I felt that right away and through the past week and a half, but as my grief has been clamoring for my attention, Satan has used it as an opportunity to plant doubts about God's ability and willingness to let me keep the joy of His presence as I prepare to feel pain again. My first loss is so fresh in my mind that I don't want to go there again. Yesterday I confessed to God that I have been trying to take it upon myself to avoid "going there" my own way. I reasoned that I could avoid falling into a pit of despair and anger if I could maintain enough control of my environment. I decided to take the good feelings I had from the grace I've been given and pour all that energy into becoming the kind of wife and mother and practitioner I always wanted to be. Messages of inadequacy have haunted me for years. I must have figured that I could silence the self condemnation by becoming my ideal and then my grief would be more manageable. Makes perfect sense right?

That would have been a hard fall, but the Holy Spirit gave me a heart check yesterday. I noticed I was short with my family and feeling overwhelmed with little things. I also hadn't spent much time in the Word lately because seeking God would expose my plan to become self sufficient. After Meredith went to bed I told God all about my fears. I acknowledged my sin and that I wanted a change. I didn't want to relive all the grief from my first miscarriage and I didn't want to lose the lessons I've learned about God's trustworthiness as I face my doubts. My reading last night was from Ezekiel's vision of ideal temple worship. Part of it spoke to me: " 'When the people of the land come before the LORD at the appointed feasts, whoever enters by the north gate to worship is to go out the south gate; and whoever enters by the south gate is to go out the north gate. No one is to return through the gate by which he entered, but each is to go out the opposite gate.' " (Ezekiel 46:9 emphasis mine) My study Bible says that this is for crowd control, but I'm not so sure. In any case, I thought it was a good analogy for my situation. I don't want to go out the way I came in. This passage reminded me that God doesn't want that for me either. He's the one working on my heart. He's the one with the plans to turn pain into blessings. I can't help but be changed from spending time in His presence. He changed me as He has been healing me from my first miscarriage. All that time spent with Him in brokenness proved to me that His power is made perfect in my weakness. When I would drop the ball on something, He proved that His grace is enough by either sparing me from the consequences I was expecting or turning it into a greater blessing. 

I get to commend myself into His capable hands and be broken again. My concern about losing ground has kept me from this, but I don't need to worry about going backwards. I need to let go of my need to control things again, but that's okay. I forgot there is no better way to live than to commend myself into God's hands. It's where I have found healing and rest before and where I'll find it again. I just needed to get it straight in my mind that brokenness isn't backwards, it's how I am being transformed.