Soul Taffy
Well, the final day of the year is here. How are you holding up my friend?
I don’t know about you, my family and I are still in a transition season. We are adjusting to a new life, settling into our new address, and finding our new rhythms less and less foreign.
It’s been a year of self reflection, punctuated by terrifying silence at times and an increased neediness of God’s real self. Who is God really? Have I made Him into something I can understand, or have I given Him the room to constantly confound me into awe and wonder of His mystery? I can’t say for sure.
What I can say is that it’s been a year of slack and growth; a softening of my soul in the hands of a God who is described as a potter, not a machinist.
we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. (Is. 64:8)
When we try to run our lives through grids and formulas, we will always achieve a result that provides us with a surface reality; but not a true one. My personal growth and regression, hasn’t been linear or trackable. There has been no personal analytics to peruse. Rather, I feel tender; like I’ve been pulled this way and that in some kind of giant taffy machine.
Did you know that taffy is pulled to make its substance lighter?
This is how I would define the work that God has been doing in me this year and what I pray He will do for you too. He’s been pulling me through some things. In order, I suspect, to make me lighter for the journey ahead. When you’re being made into something new, there is no room for the old ways of being. Although, God knows, I’d rather experience less pull and more progress.
Maybe you’re like me and have seen so many posts, articles, or blogs about what you should and shouldn’t do in the new year. Perhaps you’ve also noticed that the contradictions run slant; dizzying and dualistic.
“Don’t do resolutions.”
“Shoot for the stars this year!”
“Don’t stress about what’s to come.”
“If you don’t plan, you plan to fail.”
And so on.
Honestly, I believe we give ourselves way too much credit over how much we can control in our lives. If this year has taught me anything, it’s that my life works best when I submit my plans to the gentle and consistent pulling of the Holy Spirit.
I am not yet who God has called me to be, but I’m definitely not who I used to be. For all of those who remain in the sweet process of being made into the image of God through the power of Jesus—may this next year be another chance to embrace obedience, release ambition, and move slowly into a life that’s marked by an extraordinary lightness.
In the words of Ken Gire and his reflections on Mary (the one who anointed Jesus’ feet with her tears and perfume), “As far as we know, Mary never prophesied, never preached a sermon, never wrote a book…she never worked a miracle, never healed anyone who was sick. All she did was love the Savior.”
My only resolution is this: to love Jesus more.
If that is my true goal, then I can be pulled in any direction necessary. May all of us be willing to be pulled through some things this year to be made lighter in love.
By grace alone,
Megan
