Growth and Conviction

It has been a while since I have put anything in here. This is because I have had to censor myself. Which could only be done by not saying anything at all.

"If you cannot say something nice, do not say anything at all."

I used to believe that to be a constricting, and silly way to look at things. Now, I think that is the best cliche advice I have ever been given. This has given me the ability to wait. To be still and meet my God before I speak.

That may very well sound insane to some people. But that is really okay, I have realize that is not my job to convince anyone of my life, it's values, or of God. He will reveal what He wants revealed.  Anyway, rabbit trail.

I have had a very difficult time this semester. This school has been the most challenging place to be in. More than the painful family troubles, more than living on my own, more than a bad relationship, and more than a desperately broken heart. This places has brought challenges, crisis of faith, and at a small point  ready to abandon God completely. I have questions, tested and doubted everything. Just so now I can stand more firmly in the reality of Christ. It is not just a belief, opinion or point of view. It is reality. God has done things I cannot begin to explain. He has showed me parts of myself I did not know existed and repaired things that I believed to be permanently destroyed. Why should I feel the need to ever prove that to someone? Why take away from my experience by using it to convince someone else when it was specifically designed to convince me and only me?!

God has convicted me of so many things that I do feel I should share as much as I can remember:

• Judging. I moved here, had a mediocre heart, and in that I passed judgement over so many students and faculty here. Just for the record, I am horribly embarrassed to admit this, but humility comes no other way. God used this to have someone speak into my life as soon as I repented to Him. It was followed by two other events that solidified that is was God.
• Hypocrisy. I feel like the previous paragraph also explains this.
• Selfishness. I wanted to come home. I wanted to come home with such a hard-hearted-ness that I was ignoring God's very gentle voice. I suppressed Him so harshly that terrifying things walked into my life. Negative thoughts, perceptions, opinions took over my heart. And to make it worse, from the overflow of the Heart the mouth speaks.
• Bitterness, anger, hatred. These all sprung from the previous.

These are just a few. But they were the most toxic. God used them, though! He used them to soften my heart after the hardening! The pastor of the church I attend here made a really awesome analogy based on the scripture of new wine and old sack cloth. He said that our hearts are the old sack cloth and when God pours out into our hearts it causes them to rip and leak. But as we allow Him to give us new hearts, he can pour His new life into us. That is a less attractive, shorter version than what Tim said. I loved it though, and God started breaking me Sunday with that message. He provided the most amazing people to work through these difficult hurts with me. They prayed over me, listened to me, gave me advice and advised others to further help.

God loves me. He is using some ridiculous circumstances to show me this. I am in shock and awe. I forgot who He was and the promises He has established for us. He is working on breaking more and more of myself away and adding more and more of His perfect love. He is showing me areas He has used me and other areas that He wants to use me and He will not even let me say no.

This was supposed to go into a completely different direction. I was going to write about how I am learning to walk with God from some personal Bible studies. But...this is where it has led.

So I guess this is the public announcement (again) saying that I will not be walking away from this College. Despite the very Godly advice of some, God has made His will clear and I know that my support system respects and loves that. Unless some very blatant Doctrine issues arise directly from leadership, I am unable to turn away from what God is doing here. The people He has specifically brought into my life have managed just live in a way that has forced my eyes open. And what God has shown me cannot be unseen. This excites me.