Pruning is Painful

To be honest with you, I hesitated to write this week. I couldn't think of what to write about. I'm such a work in progress right now. It's easier to write about lessons learned after you have learned them. I'm in the middle of some lessons right now, and I feel very inadequate to write about them just yet.

For several months now, I've been in a pruning season with God. It's been an ugly process. I'm not a huge fan of it, myself. I believe strongly that God has some new things in store for my future. I'm totally unsure what they are. But whatever they are, He decided some things needed to be worked on in my life before He reveals them to me or before I walk into them.

In the meantime, I'm in this painful pruning process. I feel like Jacob wrestling with God, and I'm pretty sure I'll come out of this season with a new identity.

This week, I decided a few things:

1. To stop dwelling on what an awful person I am while being pruned, and instead focus on how great God is - slow to get angry and abounding in love.
2. If I ever want to get out of this season and begin bearing more fruit or even much fruit, I am going to have to start battling in prayer. The enemy would love to keep me bound up in this paralyzed position as long as possible, wallowing in self pity and discontent. Only as I begin to bind Satan in Jesus' name will I see the fruit of all this.
3. It is entirely possible that my latter days will be greater than the past. I had a hard time accepting that. What could possibly be better than birthing and raising five beautiful children? Being a pastor's wife? Planting a thriving church? I don't really know. But, in the words of my dear friend and mentor, Sherri Sumstine, "That was His best for then. This will be your best for NOW." God, I want your new best for me, and to get that, I must release the idea that there will never be anything better than what I've already had.

Sorry if this sounds like a bunch of gibberish. Everything's very scattered in my head. I feel inadequate to talk to you about parenting or marriage or homeschooling or homemaking at this point. I am not on my A-game in any of those areas. I can't wait to be on the other side of this time so I can go to bed each night feeling good about how I did in those areas of my life. But for now, I'm navigating one day at a time, doing all I can to keep tuned in to Jesus so I can hear everything He's wanting to say to me right now.

Thank God for grace - from my children, from my husband, even from my dogs, and mostly, from God Himself. God rocks!