I hope I can say this the way it is happening inside me – Ann is experiencing the same in her life and it is so precious, from ABOVE, and other worldly to be going through it together.
I know what is happening in me is God and it’s not always easy for me to put into words what He is doing other than to say something like, “I was blind and now He – out of His abundant faithfulness and love – is making me able to see.” Even that description/explanation of what He is doing is so understated.
If God sees a heart in any of us that wants Him, He will overlook all of our faults along the way to transform us into His likeness, into His Holiness.
Most of the time, I thought it would be nice to be thankful for the nice things in life – vacations, bank accounts, nice cars, family and home with the pride of having successful work. We all know what most of those things are. Honestly, I never thought it would ever be possible for me to be grateful and thankful for those things that made me feel like I was less than, like I didn’t fit in, like I would be in the “wilderness” barely surviving, worried, scared, and mostly feeling miserable all my life.
The last two days, God has been so near to me and making me feel so thankful deep in my soul for the migraines, CPTSD, job situation, shame, and all the rest. He’s really showing me it is so overwhelming and beautiful how He has used what I thought were such awful obstacles and dead ends to cause me to “look up” out of immense gratitude for what He alone knew I would one day praise and thank Him for out of a new heart only He could produce in me.
Truly, God’s ways are not our ways because He is so ABOVE us in such all-powerful and supernaturally loving ways. When He begins to work His all-knowing, and all-loving, ABOVE ways in us, it is often not comfortable because we are so filled with “down here,” so filled with the earthly ways our flesh is used to. But His end result is such a powerful work that can only be recognized and understood as His work.
To Him be all glory, honor and praise.
He has loved me through it all – that is amazing by itself. Even when I thought He must hate me for what He was allowing me to go through with no hope that it would ever end.
Be ye Holy for I am Holy (1 Peter 1:16b). Wow, God wants to make us free (Holy) like He is. Isn’t that something? He wants us to love, to be forgiving, to be patient, to be without fear, and torment. He wants us to be Holy like Him. I can see where He’s going with this, and it is beyond natural comprehension and this realm in the spiritual sense. He is so amazing and wonderful beyond what I thought.
Only God could take the old Mark and make me new. And I sit here marveled at the path He chose to make me Holy, free, more like Him. And His Holiness keeps filling more of me.
I’m thankful for the hard things, for His things He used that filled me not with anger like I thought would never end, but with supernatural, heavenly gratitude and thanksgiving…Holiness.
It is going to be so fun to throw any crown He gives me in Heaven at His precious feet. I will never stop doing it. He has given me new Life, His Life. It is so Holy. I’m so thankful.
Thanking and praising God in all things (Ephesians 5:20),
Mark
Note: While we may not agree with everything a particular church or Christian group teaches or believes, there are times when we can be blessed by something outside the realm of our current understanding of God.