Stretching

I knew something like this was coming…I’ve been asking for it. What is holding me back from reaching the next level that Thou would have me be on? One of the answers: You need to be a better friend. You need to think of others more than yourself and your comforts and conveniences. You need to overcome your fear of reaching out, getting involved, loving more deeply, and taking life by the hands. And even though I’d been asking for it, the lesson came more painfully than I ever thought it would. Surprisingly painful. And maybe that’s how it is in life. We think to ourselves, this changing will undoubtedly not be pleasant, but unpleasant becomes poignantly painful oh so quickly. And maybe that’s how He has to get it deep enough in our hearts so the lesson’s seed won’t merely be blown off with the first passing wind. It’s got to be deep to take root enough to grow; make a lasting impression. But the planting hurts, maybe so we’ll more easily remember. You don’t really have to ask why it’s happened when you were the one who asked for it. You just make the connection and know that’s how it is; how He works within you. Now you just have to get all you can out of it, learn the right lesson. Is this what it feels like to have a change of heart? And you thank Him…and you love Him for it…because you can see what may become; what you may become. This stretching has purpose; these thoughts fill your mind as your eyelids fall before you sleep. And somehow you already feel the growing. Somehow your heart feels just a little nearer, a little more like His. You’re learning the right lesson it whispers.

“If a sudden, stabbing light exposes the gap between what we are and what we think we are, can we, like Peter, let that light be a healing laser? Do we have the patience to endure when one of our comparative strengths is called into question? A painful crisis may actually be the means of stripping corrosive pride off of that virtue.

Can we remain silent when silence is eloquence—but may be used against us? Or will we murmur, just to let God know we notice the ironies?”
(Irony: The Crust on The Bread of Adversity, Neal A. Maxwell)