To Be Made New

I’ve asked so many times why God allowed me to hurt so bad, to cry so hard, to struggle so deeply…. Just the thought of the pain still makes me cringe—the wounds are so intense. And yet, I finally see something beautiful emerging from my life. I’m beginning to truly understand a refining process that is so much more extreme than I thought possible. I just didn’t expect God to do that to me, and I’m honored He saw something so much better than I was. Even when I thought I couldn’t survive another night, God knew I would come through and be more beautiful and more like Christ, and would experience greater joy and peace because of the “fire”.

I’ve been to the end of myself. I’ve come to a place where I saw my own depravity, my weakness, my insignificance and my finiteness. I’ve come to a place where everything I thought I knew was shattered—where the only Truth I was sure of was to cling to God as if the very air to my lungs depended on it. I can relate to Eustace when Aslan tore layer after layer of the dragon’s scales from his body. Finally I just stood naked but ready to be re-made by Him.

I’m blessed to be loved by someone so much better than anyone I ever dreamed of. He has cried with me over my hurts. He has cried because he wanted to take them away. But the thing that amazes me (I don’t know if he realizes this) is that it is because of those wounds that he loves me the way he does. Those layers torn off left me new and able to love in a way that I couldn’t before. I didn’t see how much God had changed me until last night, as I sat in complete awe of the love that’s been offered to me and realized how much I have to offer back.

I see so many of you, my dear friends, going through that same fire right now. You are hurting and wondering if life is good. It doesn’t seem good. In fact, heaven has never looked better. You wonder why God would promise good things to you, and yet your life is just one painful experience after another. You don’t feel like you have much meaning, and you don’t feel like you’re getting any stronger or more beautiful. All you really feel, is like you are stretching thinner and thinner. You think eventually you’ll just break (I literally felt like I was drowning). But I want to tell you, that one of these days, you’re going to become a beautiful treasure. The trials you face now (even if they are just internal ones) will refine you and remake you. And once that happens, I promise you—you will see amazing gifts of love from God. They will be better than you can imagine, and you’ll be able to savor them like you’ve never “tasted good things” before…because you will be able to experience them without the “dragon scales” smothering you!