Squeeze The Tomato

(What a stunning river it was that day, so calm… at surface level…)

I don’t know if I can ever comfortable write out all that happened when our neon was totaled.  A big truck pulled out in front of us and made an accordion out of our little car.  So many people where there for us, little miracles where pieced together after the fact, and although it shouldn’t have been so we where all okay… physically.

A conference speaker said ‘When the tomato is squeezed you see what was inside.’

When I sat physically paralyzed by shock, after the accident, I received one of the most amazing miracles of my life.  I assumed the worst and yet was praying, with seemingly no will power of my own, over and over and over ‘Thank you Jesus.’… I didn’t feel abandoned in that moment, I realized I didn’t let go of my faith when I thought it was over and I didn’t feel alone… far from it… I have never felt so wrapped up in my saviors love, so secure in my eternal salvation and so THANKFUL for Jesus having me!

This was years ago, before we had our last two kids.  Where is my heart day to day?  When the big events aren’t happening how is it doing?  Am I devoted to him, unconditionally as I live my pretty undramatic regular life?  Am I devoted to him when my undramatic life gets a good dose of drama or trauma?  We are called to trust.  When we do we soon discover all these kinds of questions are answered in him and by him, because Jesus takes care of it… if we can just trust.

We will be refined and purified, through out this life, by our Lord.  We can’t do any of the cleansing.  This is the very reason Christ came!  He is our doctor and wants our sickness!  The hard things in life reveal where we are at in the process but they also can be used by the Lord to burn away our impurities, as gold is purified by the furnace.

We are sick.  Often we can drum up guilt over what we see coming up from our heart and more so from what we know is there, masked with our performances.  We are afraid of what we don’t know about ourselves.  We crush ourselves with guilt when we fall… AND YET we can ask the Lord into our temptation instead of wait for the fall.  We can let him in to examine the darkest store rooms of our heart, to discover what we don’t even know about.  If we would just stop fighting our deceitful heart on our own and stop punish ourselves with guilt, neither have benefit… instead surrender our pride, pride in our abilities and strength, and hand the heart over to the Creator.

The enemy wants us to believe we are beyond hope when our dark recesses are exposed.  He doesn’t want us to allow the Lord to clean it out.  He is a liar.  Trust in your Savior!

TTFN