Mikki's Blog - Living in the Grace and Love of God » Pain

Mercies in Disguise: Finding God in Your Trials

Mikki — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:14:57 +0000

Seasons of trials and troubles, pain and suffering, disappointments and dying dreams can leave all of us with more questions than answers. We find ourselves unable to box our theological answers as neatly as before. We wrestle with questions like, “Where are you, God?” “Why have you deserted me?” “Are you real, God?” In our trials, we reach for our false strengths and we find that they were only illusions.

My greatest trials thus far lie just behind me. I can still see them in the rear view mirror. And yet, I move forward looking unto the road before me.

As Laura Story so beautifully sings in her song, Blessings, I have found blessings in the raindrops, healing in the tears, God’s presence in my sleepless nights. Somehow, in the ways that only God can, my trials have brought me God’s mercies in disguise.

I don’t like it. In fact, I hate it, this process where God allows us to be stripped of our defenses and our facades. I hate the process and cherish the result.

And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. And…the man touched the hollow of his thigh. Genesis 32:24-25

God met Jacob when he was alone. All of Jacob’s assets were of no good to him when he met God one on one. There was no one or no thing for Jacob to rely on that night. And maybe for the first time in his life, he didn’t run. He stayed, he wrestled. And God blessed him by wounding him.

Forevermore Jacob had a change of identity. He would no longer be identified with his false identity. He would now be, "Israel", He had stayed in the battle and not run away. He had prevailed.

He was now marked by his encounter, his wounding.

For Jacob, now Israel, the wound would forever be with him to remind him that he had encountered God. He was blessed. He was forgiven. He had found his true identity and could leave his past behind…except for that limp.

He could never take a step without his limp.

God’s strength would be shown in Jacob’s weakness.

Our God encounters have a way of showing us the eternal perspective of all we use to give us value in false ways. Whether money or beauty or influence, it can all be lost in an instant and suddenly one finds that the only things of value in this world is that which has been touched by God.

Our most transforming wrestling matches are between our own fleshly strengths and God’s supernatural strength. We will always lose, and yet, in losing, we win.

We become marked and there is no shame in the limp because it anchors us to the true hope we can only find in God.

Take a moment and listen to Laura’s song and ask yourself if there are blessings in your raindrops, healing in your tears, the nearness of God in your sleepless nights, and God’s mercy disguised in your trials.

Mercies in Disguise: Finding God in Your Trials

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Seeing Christmas Through the Gift of Myrrh

Mikki — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 13:05:34 +0000

I love meaningful gifts. What’s a meaningful gift? For me, it’s a gift that says you know me. You understand at least some of the essence of who I am. And it cannot be dishtowels. My hubby and kids all know that I hate getting dishtowels for Christmas (lol, can you tell that I get dishtowels every year from a certain beloved relative?)

The magi brought meaningful gifts to Jesus. Jesus, being just a small child, certainly couldn’t grasp the significance of the gifts but yet they were deeply meaningful. They were prophetic gifts. Frankincense, gold, and myrrh.

I wonder if Joseph and Mary kept the gifts, thought on their meaning, or perhaps, re-gifted? Nah…

This morning I’ve been pondering the gift of myrrh.

Myrrh is derived from tree sap. A tree is wounded, repeatedly, pierced to locate the resin deep inside the tree. The resin then begins to ooze from the cut, dripping out in tear-formed drops which are left to harden on the tree. Later this hardened resin is collected and transformed into something useful. Although myrrh tastes bitter, its fragrance is incredibly beautiful. In the days of Jesus, it was often used in burial and many times symbolized death.

How beautifully this gift spoke of Jesus’ life and death!

Does it speak of your life?

Have you been wounded in this life? Pierced deeply? Repeatedly? Do you have a bitter taste in your mouth from the woundedness?

How can your deep woundedness become a lovely fragrance?

Well, just like myrrh, it is a process that takes time. It costs. The process may involve pain, suffering, bitterness, and hardening, but God’s refining applied to the essence that flows out of our wounded places, can create an aroma that rises from our lives that is a gift. A gift to ourselves, a gift to others, and a gift to God.

Have the wounded places in your life become gifts?

What a great time to ponder the gift that we now have and enjoy that flows out of his wounds.

Seeing Christmas Through the Gift of Myrrh

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With God in the Valley

Mikki — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 12:39:45 +0000

Recently I’ve been pondering how God leads me, at times, into the valley of the shadow of death, where life is uncertain, the terrain is difficult, and it’s just downright scary at times.

color:#4F3C30">Well, you might say, “God doesn’t do that.” Uh, I beg to differ. The Psalmist David, the one God Himself said was a “man after my own heart”, invited us to explore the reality of walking in that valley. Job, who was called “a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil”, certainly walked through the valley. Jesus Himself was “driven into the wilderness” to be tempted, and on the cross he faced the greatest darkness, as he took my sin and your sin and the sin of all humanity on himself and cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

color:#4F3C30">The mysteries of human suffering are beyond our grasp, and yet God invites us into them. While I do not believe that God causes evil and I understand that all evil and pain in the world are a result of the work of the enemy, I do believe that God uses human suffering to change us.

color:#4F3C30">In the valley, we struggle and grasp for answers. We wish we could explain the workings of God and the workings of evil in neat theological boxes and all the while God is whispering to us that it’s not so much understanding that we need but a releasing of our need to understand.

color:#4F3C30">Yes, God wants us to learn through our struggles and our suffering. Yes, God wants to give us insight, but beyond that God desires to lead us to the point where we can trust Him in the midst of our suffering.

color:#4F3C30">Frankly, I’ve flunked that test more times than I’ve passed. Oh, I passed lots of easy tests. The true/false ones. The fill-in-the-blank ones. But the essays! How I’ve hated those! The ones where I have to process through and come to a conclusion.

color:#4F3C30">Yet learning to trust God is a lot like those essay tests; a long and purposeful journey. Trusting God is a lifelong process. While I may be quite comfortable trusting God in one area of my life, I may find that I am completely unable and often unwilling to trust Him in another.

color:#4F3C30">And He knew that before He invited me to come into relationship with Him. He didn’t require my perfection. He knew my story before it began to be written. Through my story, He pursues my heart, wooing me to Himself. He challenges me to open new areas of my heart to Him. He asks me to live in the mystery.

color:#4F3C30">The work of God in me is “inside out”. I may be able to fake most of you off. You might spend an hour with me and think I’ve got it all together. You might even attend my church and think I’m a super Christian (you know what I mean, the ones with the S on their cape). But nothing in me is hidden from God. My times in the valley expose the depths of who I am and what I really believe about God, life, and myself. God is able to handle the truth about who I am and where I need to grow. He is committed to lead me into that truth, enabling me to face my own personal truths with His Spirit, and giving me extravagant grace to change.

color:#4F3C30">Sometimes the changes are easy, but often they come like winning a war, one battle at a time. The battles leave me wounded at times. Scarred. Limping like Jacob, but if I find what God is offering me, I leave the battle with deeply understood truth about who I am and who He is. Such truth leads me into new levels of trust. Surely such a God who would walk with me through the valley, correcting me at times, comforting me often, is worthy of my trust!

color:#4F3C30">My journey is much like peeling an onion, layer after layer of my resistance, my need to control, compare, and compete, get peeled away and I become more able to face the naked truth about myself and my life. I can live in the paradoxes. I can live in the mysteries, and I can say with the Psalmist David, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…I know you are with me.”

With God in the Valley

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