I can feel it in my soul that God is working in me this season, not ON me, but in me. It feels like He is the Gardner and I am the garden. I mean, I feel it so strongly, it is as if I actually see it happening right in front of me. He is turning over the dirt, pulling out weeds, cutting off branches that fail to produce and pruning the ones that do.
This is not the first time I have been in a season like this and it is not the last time I will be in a season like this, however, something is different this time around. This time, I don't hate Him coming in to my garden and disheveling all of what was in exchange for what is to come.
Is it still uncomfortable? Yes. Does it still feel lonely sometimes? Yes. Does it still make me want to cry because everything being pulled and prodded all at once feels overwhelming? Yes.
Change, growth... those experiences do not come without moments of discomfort. But the difference this time is that I am not fighting God to keep the old. Instead, I am seated there, silent, and I am watching, actually, more like... marveling at the work He is doing in me. Rather than a feeling of fear, I have a feeling of curiosity. Rather than a feeling of hesitation, there is a feeling of readiness and excitement. I have exchanged the need to have control, for the feeling of acceptance and embracing the inevitable.
Over time and over an endless amount of tears, I have learned, regardless of what God takes out, I will always be okay. There is such freedom tied to that statement and to that belief. The word that immediately comes to mind as I watch God deconstruct and construct is the word "okay". For once, I can look forward without wincing at what is happening before me, in me, and feel... okay. It took me a lot of hard seasons to realize the obvious, which is that change is inevitable. Loss is inevitable. Hurt is inevitable. For SO long, I fought God on those things. I fought Him HARD. I wanted to keep my garden exactly the way it was, every time. Then, when God would come in and "mess it all up", I would cry, I would get angry, I wouldn't understand and most times, I would even call Him unfair. That went on until finally... the dust settled, the poking and prodding slowed down, and I begin to find the beauty in the unfamiliar. Then the time would come for a change in season and all of the bad emotions would begin to bubble up within me when I felt a pruning season approaching. Again, I would just wonder WHYYY God wouldn't let me keep things I wanted in THAT moment and WHHYY would He chose to mess stuff up NOW?! Until, again, the dust settled and I found a new sense of peace in things He did allow me to keep, as well as in things He didn't. That pattern happened for awhile. It happened a lot longer than I would like to admit, and honestly, I can't give you an exact date when this realization hit me... but I know it was recent.
God produces beautiful. Over and over. It is an even more beautiful experience when we just allow it to happen.
Now, I look at the process with excitement, because pruning only means one thing... it is almost harvest season BAYBEEEE.
blakekathryn
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