"Rid me of myself, I belong to You."
These are words that I have prayed over the last two decades at various times in my life. I desired for God to transform my heart and make me more like Him- not self-serving, over flowing in love, compassion, patience. I wanted to be able to see beyond myself and identify the needs of others. I hoped to be generous with whatever resources I had. I naively thought that prayer would be a painless transition from the me that considers self first to a me that possessed those characteristics.
And I don't think I really gave it any thought after praying those words.
But then, recently, I was journaling my prayer, and the landscape of my heart led me back to those words. So I wrote them down. All of a sudden the glass shattered and all the other times I have thrown those words out came flooding back to me.
Has God not been steadily doing just what I have asked for all of those years? Each piece of me that has been lost and grieved, have they not been serving the purpose of unloading the parts of me that do not serve His purposes? The strength and ability to workout that has been removed from me led me to a dark season of realization that much of my identity had been placed in what my body could do. Although I never really invested much in beauty, my hair was a great source of confidence. As my hair began to fall out in clumps, I had to accept that my hair does not add value to my ability to glorify God. When the systems in my body broke down and the shape of my body changed I had to admit that my vanity should not hinder how I engage with others. Again and again, I have felt the blows of loss- not just in my body but also financially and by losing my home and I have, each time, had to come to terms with the misplaced worth I've given each of these facets. I have worked through the need of allowing myself to grieve but I never saw that, through all of these hardships, God was chiseling away the parts of me and my life that I have, unknowingly, held tightly too.
Yikes.
And yet, what a beautiful realization! My prayer moving forward is that the Lord would keep that encouragement present in my mind. On the days when I feel so unfamiliar in this frame or when I look at all that my family has walked away from, I want my heart to be encouraged that God is stripping away things that could be hindering our refinement. We can grieve, absolutely, but not without hope. I'm sure I don't need to add this disclaimer, but just in case it is necessary: I don't believe that this means God exclusively operates this way when we ask Him to change our hearts. But, as someone who always held fast to the power of prayers, as long as it was someone else petitioning the Lord, I am almost giddy with excitement that here is proof that He hears my prayers as well. Through these difficult roads, both trivial and principal, my heart has been letting go, piece by piece, the parts of me that still exalted myself above all else. It's still uncomfortable, don't get me wrong. I find myself daily having to constantly lay to rest
what I have built up as my "identity." But it is also thrilling to be affirmed that He does hear me and that "our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."
Praise be to Elohim Shamah- the God who hears!
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