Fragments of the Past

Our New Normal offered many pleasant surprises. Some of our upgrades were unfamiliar, yet welcome. We enjoyed becoming an honorable person. We were delighted to be viewed as trustworthy. We stopped demanding respect and began earning it. We appreciated the new opportunities God sent our way. We looked in amazement at the doors which stood open in front of us. We looked with gratitude at the doors which had closed behind us.

The glaringly obvious issues had been removed with Jesus’ words, “It is finished!” and once we began moving out of our active addiction, much of the chaos connected with our former lifestyle settled down. We looked to the future with hope and knew that God was working out the more subtle issues, one at a time, little by little.

Lots of negatives had been removed, leaving a huge gaping hole in our soul. We felt as if our emotional center resembled an excavation site; filled with bulldozers, backhoes, and caution tape. Once the surface-level layers were removed, the process became more meticulous and precise. An archeological dig often begins with heavy equipment, but the expert precision near the treasure is done with a toothpick and tiny brush. So too, our soul dig went through a transformation. It seemed as if it had begun with a total upheaval of our surface level behaviors and lots of changes to the landscape. But eventually, the progress slowed, and we got discouraged. We didn’t realize God needed to use a lighter touch as He sifted carefully through our broken fragments.

His work was so quiet and gentle, we sometimes wondered if He was even doing anything at all. We loved the big, dramatic, exciting changes which we passionately recalled to anyone who would listen. However, the small, hidden changes were tedious and exhausting. They were not nearly as noticeable. At times, we wondered if we might lose interest, or worse, perhaps God might.