The Potter

The last few weeks have been so full of emotions, unknowns, answers, heartache and rejoicing, I hardly know which way is up anymore. I don't feel defeated or down necessarily, I guess I just sort of feel neutral, like all my emotions are cancelling each other out.

I've been processing how to know God's will or that He's present or good. I have found myself sort of drifting through my circumstances uncertain of how to answer those questions. Uncertain of how to pray, what to ask for or if I would be heard when I asked.

I'm not ungrateful or without faith but things aren't the same as they were. And I suppose that's a good thing, that God, not intending to leave me where I was at, has me right where He wants me, not in an assassin sniper way, but in the way a loving Father leads his daughter so she can grow, so she can depend on Him more and trust in Him. There are always new depths of love with God. We think we get it, that we've "arrived" or somehow know Him in His fullness but there's always more. His vehicles for getting us there, to a place of knowing these new depths are often not what we would choose, sometimes they are, sometimes we are brought to His heart through intense joy and the culmination of our dreams. Sometimes we are brought through uncertainty and excruciating pain. How the Potter chooses to shape the clay is up to Him, He chooses the tools, He knows the finished product and we are either willfully submitting to Him or fighting against Him. I guess I do both. I know the way that leads to life is in bending my will to His. I know (at least in my head) that He IS love and acts in love towards me even when it feels like torture.

There is something to be said for surviving the pain. For enduring with the Lord and coming out on the other side with Him. It's like any relationship, when you go through something traumatic together, it often draws you closer. You realize how much you need that person, how grateful you are for them and are convinced that you could survive anything together. I tend to forget that at first, I ask questions like "are you there? are you real? am I being punished or forgotten?" Maybe it's because we can't see Him that we are more likely to question Him. While I am sure that He is more present, more compassionate, more loving than anyone on earth, it can be easier to believe of those I can see and feel in the flesh.

But I do see Him. I see Him in the sunsets and crashing waves. I feel Him in the embrace of my loved ones or a gentle breeze on my face. He is here and He is who He says He is. He is love. So in this moment, I am choosing to trust, to bend to and rest in the will of the Father. And I pray that I will have the faith to choose it again in the next moment not just out of submission because, after all He's God, but in hope of what God is doing and will do through this unexpected flurry of circumstances which I would never have chosen but have to believe are in fact working towards my good and the good of others and for His glory.

"Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?" John 11:40