Soul Jeweler

This morning was horrible.
It shouldn't have been, but it was.
It had no reason to be, but it was anyway.

The reason this morning was horrible was because I tried to avoid God all morning.

My thoughts and emotions have been swirling and storming the last several days, and I couldn't get them settled. Once my family left the house, I thought, "I should journal." Just as quickly, I recoiled. I hemmed and hawed and delayed and dragged my feet and tried to skate past that idea. Why do I keep doing this? What exactly am I afraid of?

I played games on my phone, fully aware I was only treading water on unresolved inner cycling (at best; usually I'm losing even more ground). I reluctantly sat down at my piano, getting close to spending time with God, but still just spinning out what was already inside me. I often have the idea that I have to vomit up 'self' until nothing is left in order to make room for God. This idea is wrong; I know it's wrong, but I still keep returning to that mess of vomit.

Because I promised myself, I went to a local midweek chapel service. The worship songs and message were exactly on point: God gets to be God. He is not and never will be a math equation I understand, let alone one I could solve. He gets to show up when and how he chooses.

One of the worship songs we sang was the song, "Shepherd," by Bethel Music. The lyrics wove into so very many thoughts I have had this past week. Tears run down my cheeks every single time I've hear the song, and I hate crying in front of other people.

When the service was over, I talked with a couple good friends who were there. We talked about where we are now, not where we were yesterday or last week or what a glossy brochure of us would say. Genuine friendships and conversations are among my favorite things in life.

Me? I stated baldly that I despise the speaker (a wonderful friend of many years, greatly used by God to speak truth in love). I didn't mean that I truly hated him, but that I resented his words being just what I needed to hear, even if they weren't what I wanted to hear. I even swore at one of the people I was talking to. Swore. In a sanctuary. Deliberately.

I'm still in a somewhat numb place, but while I was listening to "Shepherd" again (yes, more tears), I thought: "Maybe this is one of my gifts."

Blunt words so often spill from me like untumbled pebbles. There may be incredible insights or deep truth, gems, among those words, but they're so very rough and unfinished...

One of my greatest gifts is how ready I am to simply be me in all my honest, messy brokenness. I know very well that my attempts to polish are pointless. I know, marrow-deep, that God is the only one who gets to be the jeweler of souls, deciding which form will showcase beauty and reflect light most brilliantly.

I don't know what's ahead of me. I'm afraid of it, whatever it is. I don't know why I'm afraid. Today feels like a day to empty my self of its many weights (for the who-knows-how-many-th time) and dump them in front of God. Today is a day for me to choose trust that he'll always find gems worth keeping in me. Today I'm reminding myself to believe he knows best how to shape me.