The Godly Woman's Journey: {W}hole

Memory/Meditation Verse: " For this reason I raised you up: so that I may display My power in you, and that My name may be proclaimed in all the earth." ~ Rom 9:17 (HCSB)


There is a restlessness in me I can't quite explain. An unsettling. An urgency. I know it is from God...but the uncertainty of it paralyzes me sometimes. Some days it is an outright battle...me against "it". Or is it a battle between God and satan for my life?

The mountain peaks of my spiritual walk run too closely with the valleys. Do you know what I mean? Do you have those weeks where God's Word graces your life with messages of hope and strength and then within one night...even one hour, change occurs and God seems so silent, so distant.

I truly believe the valleys are of my own doing. I lose my grip or my foot slips because I allow something into my heart or my mind that is not from God but of my own selfishness. I am left with "holes" in my life...emptiness, lack of self-worth, disgrace and rejection. But no matter how hard I fall, I can still say I hunger and thirst for a deeper relationship with my God. This in turn feeds deeper into my restlessness.

Then I picked up this book and though I am only a couple of pages into it I read...

"My story: my life...my journey...the things I'd seen and done in my life. My holes: the things that had come as a result, limiting and defining me. Holes in my religion, roles, and experiences had kept me from many things: effectiveness, peace, fulfilling my created purpose." ~ {W}hole, Lisa Whittle, pp.3.
http://wholethebook.org

Holes. My past. My story. A plague of resentment and regret that I choose not to linger on. Then I come across our memory/meditation verse listed above from in this first chapter and I am reminded of God's work in and through me during those times. I am pulled up from the valley I have fallen into, the dust is wiped off my jeans and a strong hand reaches out to me and pulls me back up into His presence and I hear...

" For this reason, I allow you to stumble, to fall into the valley so that I can raise you up. It is in raising you up from yourself and your failures that I can bring you into My likeness. It is though the valleys that I may display My power in you. And by doing it this way, My name will be glorified through the healing I display in your life. No matter how ugly you have tried to make it, I want others to see Me in you and in all that you have been."

Satan wants me to dwell on the past itself and not on where my past has brought me with my God. There are many holes in my life, some holes created by my own actions, other holes created by the acts of others. Whatever the cause I have learned over the years the power of healing found through scripture and some of these holes are fully filled with God now. How easy we forget this when we are in the valley, be it for an hour or a week.

Picking up Lisa's book has soften the restlessness I have been experiencing. A refocusing of the past that has brought me to a {W}holeness I cherish. It has been in some of my worst times that God has been most real, most near to me. I wouldn't trade that for anything.

"I can find no greater purpose than to be used by God to tell that holes-to-wholeness story by proof of a changed life...God saved me from myself and I couldn't be more grateful." (pp. 41)

I want an authentic faith, an intimate relationship with God that allows me to live confidently for Him and not for myself. I want to be able to share His goodness to others through my valleys, my story, my holes that have drawn me closer to knowing and experiencing Him. I want to be a living, breathing representation of Christ.

"What seems a hindrance becomes a way" ~ Henri Nouwen (pp.1)

A godly woman bravely embraces her Master and chooses not to let go. Knowing and experiencing Him becomes her mission in life. I am grateful for the {W}holeness I have found for my holes.

Living in His Embrace ~ Pamela