In the early years of my faith, I was often genuinely appalled by the Israelites behavior towards God.  I often thought through the mind-blowing miracles they witnessed.  It baffled me to learn that after delivering them from years of long stretched slavery, parting the red sea right before them, and raining down food from heaven for them; that anything ever again could have had the capacity to distract their hearts, minds or souls for even the briefest millisecond…

 

Today, someone passed along the scipture, James: 1, which began:

 

“ Consider it a sheer gift when tests and challenges come at you from all sides.  You know that under pressure, your faith life is forced into the open and shows its true colors.”

 

Tears flooded from my eyes, as  my head dropped to my chest, and I realized that I…have had mind-blowing miracles in my life, too, on a daily basis.  The grace and provision of God’s faithfulness during this season of my life glinted through my thoughts.  HE has delivered me from a long stretch of bondage, that I hadn’t even known I was in.  Whenever I have found myself at the insurmountable impasses…HE has moved the ground before me and shone a light for me amidst the impenetrable fogs.  When it seemed I had lost everything, HE rained down great provisions…

 

Yet for so very long, my heart, mind and soul has been greatly distracted, and in being…I have not fully stood in wonder and awe at His miraculous hand in my humble, little life.

 

The longer I remain on this faith journey, through the mesmerizing moments, and the unkind inexplicable; through the awe and great devastations, through the reaching out and being held; the triumphs and gut renching failures; the moments of brilliance and undecipherable perplexities.  The seasons of timeless love, both irreplaceable and disappointing friendships and relationships; through the rage, even hatred, healing, dancing, weeping, dreaming, screaming, being…there has been immeasurable grace.

 

 And I have learned with full certainty…that I, like the Israelites, am prone to bend, to break, to show my true colors.  That I am, and will always be in desperate need…of a Savior.