i want to be beautiful
make you stand in awe
look inside my heart
and be amazed
i want to hear you say
who i am is quite enough
just want to be worthy of love
and beautiful
-bethany dillon
i don't really know how to start this post. and truthfully, i don't really even know how to write it at all, but i can warn you that this will be a very honest look into my heart. i like for my blog to be about my life, the good, the bad, and the ugly and all the things the lord is teaching me through the afore mentioned situations. while i'm on the topic, let me just go ahead and address this: i don't write for other people. i write for myself, because it's therapy for me, and it works as kind of a back-up to the journal i keep. do i hope that jesus can teach the people who read my blog through what i post? absolutely. do i write for sympathy or praise? absolutely not. i hope that people read what i write and can relate and feel like they're not the only one. and i hope that people are encouraged by the lessons the lord teaches me.
moving on.
i don't think i've ever felt cheaper in my life than i do right now. on top of that, i feel confused, hurt, angry, sad, embarassed, stupid, worthless, and deceived. thank the lord for sweet sara giffin and her endless encouraging words, or i don't know how i would be handling this. i'm so thankful for her. we had accountability last night, and i was sharing all of these things with her, and as i'm spilling my heart out, she was finishing my sentences - she knew exactly what i'm going through and how i feel. what a blessing. we talked for a long time about the story in matthew 9 when the paralytic is carried to jesus by his friends. we reminded each other that we need to be faithful to carry each other to jesus, to intercede for each other, to pray for each other, and to pour out love and encouragment on each other. sara never tries to belittle my feelings; she doesn't try to solve my problems; she doesn't make me feel like i'm being dramatic. she validates how i feel, and she points me to truth. it's funny i mention this after yesterday i posted about leaving emotions out of obedience. sara also reminded me last night that emotions are a beautiful part of being human - that it's okay to have them and experience them and work through them (jesus, too, had emotions). thank you, jesus, for the sweet friend i have in sara giffin.
sorry for the tangent. aaanyway. i think that i've finally started to understand the consequences of following your heart. what freaking bologna. "follow your heart." "listen to your heart." "the heart won't lie." don't get me wrong, i love reba, but what my heart does best is lie to me. i followed my heart into yet another situation that left me hurting. not only that, but i'm asking the question "why am i not enough?" over and over and over. and let me tell you, friends, if you've ever wondered that about yourself, it's a miserable place to be. i'm wondering why just me - who i am - wasn't (or isn't) enough. am i not pretty enough? not thin enough? not godly enough? not smart enough? not funny enough? did i not give enough? i don't understand. some days i feel like i'm being punished, because i'm single. like i've messed up too many times, and now god is just going to let me suffer a lonely life of really great (and sometimes not so great) almosts. (i know that isn't true and that's not how god works, but i told you that i was going to be honest.)
jeremiah 17:9 says, "the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked."
proverbs 4:23 says, "guard your heart above all else, for out of it springs the issues of life."
true and true.
i was not protecting my heart - or rather having jesus protect it - and while it was vulnerable i was deceived, and now i'm in a mess of heartache. when, oh when, will i learn this lesson? when will i stop searching for affirmation in anyone else but jesus christ? when will i realize and belive that i am complete in him (colossians 2:10)? when will i stop giving so many pieces of my heart away to unappreciative recipients?
remember the other day how i said this was a sweet time in my life? that jesus gets to have me all to himself? i think that's exactly what he wanted. and he's taking me apart, bit by bit, to put me back together just how he wants me. i just wish this process weren't quite so painful. but you know the old saying, "beauty is pain?" i think it's true in this case, too. and i don't mean physical beauty.
"you refine us like silver."
-psalm 66:10
do you know how silver is refined? it's refined to seperate the pure silver from the junk. first, it's mixed with nitric acid to dissolve the silver; this creates silver chloride. then it's mixed with sodium carbonate and heated in a furnace to a temperature of 1200 degrees celsius. this process produces table salt and pure silver. it works without the addition of sodium carbonate, but without it, the reaction from the silver chloride and heat creates poisonous chlorine gas.
it's a miserable process for the silver, i can imagine (hello, 1200 degrees celsius cannot feel good to anybody or anything), but without exactly the right steps, the end result is catastrophe - it's poisonous.
refining isn't fun. but it's necessary. and the end result is beautiful (see above lyrics).
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