jiggers in my heart

[isaiah 1:25-26] 

"I will thoroughly purge away your dross and remove all your impurities. I will restore your leaders as in days of old, your rulers as at the beginning. Afterward you will be called the City of Righteousness, the Faithful City."

 

I will purge away your dross.

I will remove all your impurities.

I will restore.

Afterward.....

So often I forget that this is a process. I'd like to skip straight to the end, please. But He's molding us, refining us to be more like Him, and often, that's not going be super easy. I'm remembering a specifically difficult time a couple years ago when I needed to be purged before I could be restored. And He brought peace. But it took time. It was painful, and yet it was the most beautiful time of drawing close to Him.

It brings to my mind a picture of the children of Uganda - horribly infected by jiggers (a nasty insect that lays eggs in feet and spreads throughout the body, often making it impossible to walk). Our brothers and sisters from Sole Hope go into the villages and provide clinics to remove these jiggers and give children a new pair of shoes. Jiggers have to be removed with something sharp and small, like a safety pin or needle. It's a painful process.

**all photo credit to Sole Hope

The fear, and pain in his eyes. But He trusts them, and so he does not struggle while he lets them cut open his small, infected feet. He knows that what they are doing to him is for his greater good.

 

God knows what we need. He sees the infection and how it will spread and He knows how to remove it and He knows it will be painful. But He will hold us through it all, through the pain, and we will rise above it in His arms, fully restored.

 

Afterward -

Afterward we rise up, more like Him and trusting Him more fully. We rejoice, remembering the pain as of the past, and rest in His faithfulness.

The most beautiful thing of all? As a believer in Him, every sin of our entire life was already paid for on the cross - done forever. We've already been washed clean. We don't have to be 'good enough,' because He is. But He is forever refining us as silver, drawing us closer always to His side, sharpening us. I need Him to scrape away anything that draws me away from Him, whatever it takes.

This week I'm reminded of the process. Sometimes the afterward is a long time coming. But He knows what I need. He sees the end. He'll hold me, gently, while the hurt is strong, and hold me still when the calm comes. But it's in the hurt, in the pain, that we're driven straight into His arms, where we cling, relinquish all control. Can we stop pushing away, and be held? Purged and restored, by the Healer.