New Wine

It's been a minute since I've done any type of blogging. With so many life changes happening, now seems as good time as any to throw up another post, so buckle up, because this one is a long one!

In August, I started seeing a counselor. For many years, I've struggled with anger and I was finally tired of always. being. angry. That, and it had been brought to my attention (on more than one occasion) that I was "cold and unapproachable". Great things you want to hear, especially as a child of God (note the extreme sarcasm in that statement)! So with much stubbornness and a lot of tears, I decided to give counseling a go.

Within the first couple of sessions, it was evident that the reason why I came off as cold and unapproachable was due to all the walls I'd been building up over the years. My counselor gave me homework: start identifying the walls. That was a tough assignment, as I found it was far easier to identify what caused me to throw up walls, rather than what the walls were actually called. And I found I had many walls...more like a fort, complete with a moat and drawbridge (for those I chose to let in close enough to get past some of the walls). Once the realization was made that I had a nice little fort-system going on, I had to come to terms with the fact that the walls could not remain up any longer. But I was still struggling to identify what the specific walls were. So I asked Jesus to reveal them to me. (Because here's the thing with Jesus: He wants to help us grow and do stuff in our lives, but we have to put in effort, too. I wanted Jesus to knock down my walls for me, yes, but He wasn't going to do anything until I called out exactly which wall(s) I wanted broken down.)

Within a day or two, Jesus revealed something to me: I was looking down and could see so clearly my fort of walls only because I was perched upon the biggest/tallest wall of them all. This wall was my control-wall. See, when one likes to see everything that is going on at all times, and needs to know what is going on at all times, it's called "control". And from where I was perched, I could "see" everything. That wall had to go, so I prayed for Jesus to bust that wall down! But before He did so, I asked that He would please help me climb down the wall first, so as that I would not be on the wall when it came crashing down.

And Jesus? He is so good. He helped me to see that the two biggest areas in my life that I love to have control over are my job/career, and relationships. And so He began working in me to let them go, prepping my heart, coaxing me to let these things go. And within weeks, Jesus stripped me of my job and my relationship with my best friend.

A few nights ago, I went with some friends to a Worship Night at a local church. The first time that I'd been to a Worship Night in months...maybe even a year, and coming fresh off of leaving my job and breaking up, I was not in the mind or heart-set to praise my Jesus. How could I worship a God who was allowing so much pain to happen, and all within a short period of time? I knew my heart was hard, so before I went, I sat down for the first time in two and a half days of not talking to Jesus, and cried and laid out my pain and hurt before Him. I knew I could not go and worship Him for all His goodness, when I was so confused and hurt, and there was so much I still didn't understand.

The music that night was good; some new songs I didn't know, but many I did. Then they started playing a song that I first discovered this past spring and have grown to really love over the course of the year: "New Wine" by Hillsong Worship. In this song, it talks about how Jesus uses our circumstances to shape and mold us into the new creations He wants us to be, making new wine out of us. Anyway, I never really listened to the lyrics too well, just the chorus:
         "Make me Your vessel
          Make me an offering
          Make me whatever You want me to be
          God, I came here with nothing
          But all You have given me
          Jesus, bring new wine out of me"

But this night, oh this night, Jesus moved in and wrecked me! A new line was revealed to me that spoke directly to my heart:
        "When I trust You, I don't need to understand"
I was sobbing as I read those words and how they spoke to my current situation. I was floored, and with streams of tears running down my face, I definitely couldn't sing. So I just lifted my hands and mouthed the lyrics to Jesus.

"God, I don't understand. And there's so much pain and confusion because of it. But I trust You, and so I don't need to understand. Help me to be content with not understanding, with not having all the answers." This has been my prayer for the last two days, and so will continue to be my prayer as my heart begins to heal from the break-up and as I look to the unknown future ahead.

Not having control is scary beyond all reason for me, especially now with being job-less and having no prospective jobs in the works. But I know that if Jesus provides and takes care of the sparrow, how much more will He take care of me during this season? God has many qualities: Creator, Protector, Healer, etc., but the one I know, time and time again, to be true of who God is to me is Provider. Maybe I was being foolish in leaving my job before another one was found, and for deciding to take off on a 2-3 week trip across country, expanding my job-searching to KC and the Rockies. Maybe I was being rebellious. I don't really know, but I do know God's got me. And He now has complete control to place me exactly where He wants me. "Jesus, bring new wine out of me."