Terrible beauty

"Yearning for God is not safe if you want to stay as you are. If you yearn for God, a sacred presence will begin to fill you. It will hover over you, nudging you to a new and eternal life. It will mean, of course, a radical change from your old lifestyle, for God will come and upset your entire life with a haunting presence, a presence that is both terrible and beautiful. It will be terrible beauty." - Macrina Wiederkehr

I want to be honest about the journey of faith, hope and love. Mostly because I want others to see that it's a lifelong journey. You don't learn to walk by faith without understanding that it's a learning process. It takes practice and yes, you will mess up and make many mistakes along the way. You will realize in the beginning just how scared you are to fail. For me, if I knew I couldn't do it right the first time I wouldn't do it at all. Really all this did was keep me from trying new things. I say all this to explain how hard it was for me to accept the process of learning how to walk by faith and not by sight.

"So we're not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace. These hard times are small potatoes compared to the up coming good times, the lavish celebration prepared for us. There's far more here than meets the eye. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can't see now will last forever."- 2 Corinthians 4:16-18

Let me share with you one of the first ways God showed me how to fix my eyes on the unseen to allow Him to begin making new life in me with His unfolding grace.  Scribbled on the 5th page of my 1st journal written at the beginning of my journey.

PRAY  >  HOPE  > GRACE  >  FAITH  = RIGHTEOUSNESS

I believe God gave me this example or formula to think of as I was allowing God to work in me. Now, let me be very clear, I am not trying to fit God into a formula. This was just a tool God gave me to help me understand the process and helped me be patient during the process. 

This is how I read the formula : 

Julie, pray for hope (hope for any concerns, fears etc. in my life).This opens the door to my heart to allow grace (Jesus) in who will do the work of faith on the inside of me. To produce righteousness from me. 

This is how I see it working.. kind like a washing machine. I will have a difficult circumstance in my life. I will pray to God for hope concerning this circumstance. God gives me hope to hold onto while grace works out the bad in me until it becomes good.. or righteousness...more Christ like than world like. For example, I might have angry or bitter feelings towards someone. My clue that God needs to work on me is the feeling of bitterness.. I pray about the  situation, allow Him to work. If I begin to worry again about it during the day, I remind myself that I have given this over to Jesus and He is working it out. I know He has changed me when bitterness has changed to the need to forgive. This process can take a while...but it helps me to focus on watching the change in me instead of the change in my circumstance. 

The first time I remember seeing this formula help me was about 6 years ago. I was dealing with someone I love very much. I was trying to help them through a tough time where they had made bad decisions that had cause a lot of unnecessary pain in their life. My intent was to help by offering kind words of encouragement and an action plan for help. All I received for hours were objections, cut downs... It was just one big fight. After a couple of hours my heart was so tired, I just wanted to give up. I was just about to walk out and I remembered my formula, I also heard God say, "Hold on, I'm not done yet". Right after that I received a text message from a good friend. This person had no idea that I was in a "battle" . The message was- "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."-Hebrews 11:1 As I read this I knew that God was going to do something.. just not sure what. I dropped my head to pray silently to myself as more uncomfortable moments of silence passed  and then I heard "Why do you still love me when I act so bad?" My heart nearly jumped out of my chest.. I ran over and gave the biggest hug and said I will always love you no matter what you do. My job is to love and help you!

My heart changed from bitter to compassion all in that one moment. I will never forget how terribly beautiful it was! The process is kind of like the video clip above. Keep going and never give up because you may just find that you can do this walk of faith and end up in the in zone one day!