Bring me joy, bring me peace...

Lately I've felt like it just won't stop raining. My heartaches, my mind wonders, my body feels stress. I worry about tomorrow, though I know I'm not supposed to. I'm not sure if it the times that we live in or if it just my life right now. I feel like the only one who has ever gone through what I'm going through, but again, I know that is not the truth. And yet, there is a comfort. Though I feel as though my life is being flipped upside down, there is still this comfort I find in knowing that it is all apart of who God is making me to be.

Many years ago when Mike and I first got married, I had the "vision" of what God was trying to teach me about the molding process that we go through to become the perfect work of His art. I learn well through visual teaching, so I think that is why this has stuck with me so well.

I was listening to a song we all may know and the these words hit me..."You are the potter and I am the clay. Mold me and make me, this is what I pray. Change my heart oh, God..." Simple words profound impact. Through that song God spoke to my heart and showed me that the process in which He takes us to mold us into whatever it is He sees, is not always an easy process. I was taken back to high school when in art class we did sculptures. We didn't make anything fancy, some made mugs, others a dish or a bowl. But the process of making that piece of art began with a rough start. It took lots of needing and pushing to make the clay pliable. And even when I thought I might have it, there would be a crack that I would have to work out. And to work out those cracks it took water, sometimes lots of water. Then, once that piece art was right where I wanted it, it was set aside to be put in the fire. There is that brief moment in which the clay sat, untouched, right before it was placed into that fire which solidified it's work. The fire, though a difficult and careful process, is what keeps the work of art what it was made into.

Thinking about that process, God showed me that I am that clay. The process isn't necessarily pleasant. If I yield myself to Him and the work He wants to do with my life, it's going to hurt. It's going to take me being pliable and Him pressing on the inner, most parts of who I am. Then comes the rain. The rain helps me to be molded into what He wants to make of me. Then, ouch! The, sometimes, hardest is to go through the fire. But in the end, through all the molding, rain, and fire, I know that the final product will be what He sees me to be.

Right now, I feel as though I'm going through that rain. Why is it? Because I've been stubborn. I can admit that I haven yielded myself to Him in the way that He needs. So here I am, standing in the rain saying "BRING IT ON" because I want to serve Him and if this what it takes, than "Jesus, bring the rain!"

This song has been my anthem. May this speak to your heart, maybe as it did mine.