Who We Will Be

 A dear friend of twenty years I haven't spoken to in some time randomly calls me. And it's funny... because I initially thought she was responding to the email I sent her about a week before but, turns out, her computer died and she never got it. This phone call was completely a God thing - she just had something to share and decided to ring me about it. Amazing how that is sometimes, isn't it? God is in everything, friends...   

So we end up talking and catching up and just reflecting on how God weaves and spins a story. She lost her husband of many years a couple years ago and has had to rebuild her life from the grief. She's struggled with health problems for many years and has had to walk a journey that has tested her faith greatly. And yet she knows what it's like for God to show up and she's sitting there, several states away, telling me how His voice never sounds like a scream and you can only hear what He is saying if you actually make the choice to tune in. 

We've marveling at some miracles He has been pulling off of late and then... she drops a truth nugget that makes the entire phone call worth it. In regards to something I shared, she simply responds, "God doesn't see our story in fragments like we do - He sees it in terms of who we will be." And I. am. undone. My soul joins in agreement and I tell her this is the key for any of us trying to make sense of a story we did not choose or mistakes we regret or struggles we face. Because we are always looking at the fragments. We're always seeing the imperfect. We're always operating in the weariness of living with ourselves and our stories and lamenting the brokenness of what we wish were not true. 

Pieces are all we see.

And we forget that God looks past the pieces into the whole and has the entire image at His display, smiling in approval of the masterpiece He will accomplish in our life. To Him, we are a work of art. We bring Him pleasure and delight. He looks at us with eyes full of possibility, anticipating the beautiful outcome He will create inside of us. Everything from His perspective is positive and optimistic. While He knows that the refining and chiseling work will not be always be comfortable or easy, He also sees that the eventual result will be one that glorifies Him and redeems the road we've walked. 

From our angle, all we notice are what still isn't fixed. We get angry. We get sad. We feel shattered. Even if we've made some progress on the path toward wholeness, the memories of our past, the emotions we've carried, the trauma or pain our bodies have endured still follow us and we become tired. Tired of fighting. Tired of wrestling. Tired of facing what we dislike about ourselves and this busted up world we live in. We wish for healing. We wish for relief. We ask God why. But what if... from where He sits... you are becoming something beautiful already? What if you only see a tiny part of the picture and He can visualize the whole? 

I'm reminding of something a different friend said to me recently when I was sharing my story with them a bit. As they held the painful parts of my journey and listened to my thoughts and where I've come, they replied, "Look at how far you've come! As far as Jesus is concerned, you're healed already." It was a stunning revelation for me - to realize that He isn't seeing what I'm seeing. I'm still running into the insecurities and mental loops that have plagued me for years, wishing I could be freed, while He is seeing me in my healed state already, patiently moving me step for step in the direction of Grace. 

As I told someone awhile ago, the fact that we can even look at the brokenness of ourselves and our world and wish for something different is evidence of the Divine inside us all. We were not made for this. Go back to the beginning of it all and you realize, God's original intent was pretty incredible. The fallenness we all suffer with and through is the reason why the cross was necessary. And so that part of ourselves that wants to shame and blame us for not being who we want to be or think we ought to be or for not entering into the healing we've long desired... we need to gently hold it and bring it into agreement with the Great Physician. 

We need to then turn our eyes on the One who sees all the parts of us - all the fragments - and chooses to love us anyway. We must remember that He was in the room for all those times that we were abandoned, rejected, invalidated, hurt, grieved, scared, isolated, bruised, battered, and unloved. He saw it all. He felt it all. He has always been there. The fragments never scared Him away. And if He can forgive and redeem those parts of us and choose to see who we can become, maybe we need to practice a little compassion for ourselves and realize that we don't have to keep beating ourselves up for being human. We can accept the kindness of God and learn to see our story for what He can do with it and who we will be. 

The promises are there to remind us: 

"...He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus" (Philippians 1:6).

"Dear friends, now are we children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2). 

God is in the work of rebuilding. There is nobody better at it than Him. That's a fact. And if He says that He will finish what He has begun, then that means you are still a creation in progress. You are still being changed. Even though the end product has not yet been revealed, your story is being crafted by the most trusted Hands you could ever have. He is a master-craftsman. He doesn't make mistakes. He doesn't do anything without purpose. Even the things He allows to remain unfinished for now are with the utmost intention. And whether or not He fixes the fragments right away or lets them stay awhile, He knows what He is doing, and you can trust Him. Someday, you will see how right He's been all along, and you will be grateful.