Today, as I sat on my recliner in an apartment I call my
own, I pondered. I sat back and let my
mind wander. Set aside the busyness of
life and the pile of school work and just reflected. The conclusion I made is this…..I’m not who I
want to be.
I want to be a woman of God.
I want to be a phenomenal teacher…not because of test scores or
classroom success, but because of the impact my life had on theirs. I want to be a role model. I want to be of upright character and humble. I want to have my priorities right with
Faith, family and friends. I want to be
in right relation with those three as well….right with God, right with family
and right with friends. I want my job
not to be for the paycheck but for the ministry. I want to be “domesticated” and be able to
cook and fend for myself. I want to
trust God in all circumstances and instead of staring at the tidal waves, look
to Jesus who will help me not only to stand, but to walk on that water. I want to be willing to forsake everything
and go wherever He leads. I want to be
open to do what He’d have me to do, reach out to whom He’d have me to reach out
to, and reveal to those who need to see the scars of my heart because in those
scars is a story of healing…a story of redemption….a story of repentance….and a
story of restoration.
I don’t have a husband and I don’t have kids of my own, but
I have 42 students entrusted to me and I know I’m not doing the best I can for
them….not giving them my all, not pouring in enough, not reaching out, and
definitely not praying for them as much as I ought to. I have the best network of friends a girl can
ask for but I know I am selfish, arrogant, rude and a torrential tester of
those closest to me.
Oh, the person I am is most certainly not the person I want
to be. But that said…..I am downright
thankful I am not the person I was either.
Yes, I have a long way to go, much to learn, and some of those things I
want to be…well, I’ll never make it. But
I can try and part of my trying going forward needs to actually be to *stop
trying*….yeah, reverse logic there. But
I can’t do this on my own. As much as I
want to be a strong woman, I need to remember that the strength I must rely and
draw from is not my own but it must be from Christ (2 Corinthians 12:9). Any self-help remedy I try to cook up will
very likely only be a temporary fix…a band-aid on the cancer that wrecks havoc
within me. Unless it be from God, then I
will very likely fail. But I am not who
I once was because of God’s help and with God’s help I still have tomorrow.
Tomorrow is a gift, if I so get that gift, as tomorrow or
even the next minute is never guaranteed.
But assuming I get a tomorrow….another breath……I’m not who I want to be,
but I think I may be on the road to get there and I pray to God that He will
help me and not leave me here where I am at…and I know He won’t. May the days that come be used mightily in
the transforming process that God has already began in me because as
Philippians 1:6 says I can be ”confident of this very thing, that He who has
begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.” I’m not who I want to be but I am thankful I
am not who I was, and I am grateful that who I am today is not where I have to
stay.
Philippians 3:12-14
“12 Not that I have already
attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that
for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. 13
Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I
do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those
things which are ahead, 14 I press
toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
Until next time,
In Christ,
Joy Lynn
Praising God alongside you, Joy, for who we are in Christ!!!! His strength is perfect in our weakness.
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