Wow! It has been a very long time since I have written. I really do miss it! The problem is I can just never seem to find the time... lame excuse. I use that for everything! Most people do though, I've realized. Time. There is never enough of it. Yet no matter how much time passes, we are always waiting for the next thing to happen, constantly looking ahead to the future. I mean, I know we can't help but be excited or curious about what is going to happen next. But whatever happened to living in the present? Living out the moment that you are in right now? I am guilty of this, of course, or I would not be writing about it. But I believe that so many good things can happen when we are living fully in the present moment. Not living in the past, or looking ahead to the future. There is a saying, "Yesterday is history, tomorrow a mystery. But today is a gift. That's why it's called the present". So, unwrap the gift and start living it!!!
I've been reading a book called "When the Heart Waits" by Sue Monk Kidd, for a class I'm taking this semester. It is an absolutely phenomenal book. I really enjoyed it when I started reading it, but today it was especially mind-blowing. Nearly everything written seemed like it was being written for me. Kind of amazing from a book that is required for a class, right? (On a side note, this class is totally awesome, and every book has been amazing!) This book is all about spiritual waiting periods, where we seem to be lost in the dark, God seems to be silent, and we feel like we have been abandoned and are about to hit bottom. Well, I was in that place after my mission trip to Thailand last summer, for 3-4 months at least. It is a scary place, especially when you're not sure what is going on. Even though I had not read this book yet, let alone even heard of it, the Lord slowly showed me through talks with various people, that I was essentially going through a waiting period, and that if I persisted, I would emerge a new creation. The author uses the analogy of a caterpillar in a cocoon, as it is transforming into a butterfly, a new creation. Being in that waiting period is hard and often scary; but to be honest, it is one of the best things you could ever go through in your spiritual life. And to be frank, every Christian should be going through them, because through them, we can emerge on the other side a new creation, closer to God, and stronger in Him, with greater revelations of Him than we've ever been able to handle before. There are things about God that I know now, that I would have never known had a not experienced that waiting period in my life. I am so thankful for that period of my life, even though during it, it was the darkest time in my life. But through it, I emerged as a new person, with so many new insights to God that I had never seen, and a deeper love for Him than ever before. So if you're reading this and you are a Christian, but feel alone, abandoned, like God is silent, and that you are hitting rock bottom, take heart. Slow down your busy life and look deep inside you, and see that it is most likely God calling you to something deeper. He may be withdrawing (yes, I did say that), but only to bring you closer to Him. He wants you to be nearer to Him, as close as his own heartbeat. It's scary, I know; but take courage (Joshua 1:6-9; Matthew 11), because Jesus has already conquered sin and death, and in Him, we have victory and we have life. So if this describes you, I hope you find comfort in these words. It's a hard path, this waiting period; but if you endure and travel to the light that will be at the end of the tunnel, you will emerge a new creation, never to be the same.
I say all this not only because of what I already have gone through, and because this book truly is amazing, but because I feel that I may be entering another waiting period. Possibly not as intense as the last one, but necessary all the same. There are parts of me that need to be healed, and love needs to bloom within me. I want to love from the very core of my being. I want to know Jesus' love (and by know, I mean experience). I want to be to each person I meet, the best example of Jesus' love that I can be to that person, whether family, friend, or so-called enemy. But in order to move to this new creation, there are things in my life, and belief systems that need to change, as well as false-selves (masks) that need to be removed from my life. Hence, the fact that I feel that there may be another waiting period arising. No two waiting periods are alike, friends. Some are shorter than others, and some feel like they will never end. But take heart! Because in the end, we will be more like Jesus, and we truly will be a new creation in Christ. This is a journey, friends. Life, in general, is a waiting period. Waiting for heaven...
