On Becoming Holy

A friend, Brittany, posted an article on her Facebook wall recently that has captured me, and is changing, the way I view relationships in my life.

You can read the full article here: Her.meneutics. Honestly, I only skimmed it briefly, but this one little truth etched itself into my brain and as I lay in bed this morning in between hitting the snooze button, God began transforming my view on the relationships and roles in my life.  I feel like I'm developing a new lens from which to see my world.

My paradigm shift came from this little sentence taken from the subtitle of a book by Gary Thomas:

“What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy?”

What a thought!  What if God has, in His mercy, allowed certain events and relationships into my life as a tool to make me holy as He is holy?  Certainly many of these things also make me happy but happiness is not the supreme goal.  Becoming more like Christ is the goal, and in that I find joy.

Ha!  I love this because I can see it so plainly now!

In my marriage, through my growing relationship with my husband, God has taught me about forgiveness: the importance of asking for it and of giving it.  God has allowed me to experience wholeness in sexuality where brokenness and distortion nearly destroyed me.  God has given me a great friend through my husband that knows me better than I know myself at times and a teacher that helps me understand God's Word.

As a mother, God has taught me to trust Him more fully.  There is nothing in this world that creates more fear in my heart than something harmful happening to one of my children.  It's a daily surrendering of my fears and choosing to trust Him because He is good.  God has taught me the importance of consistency.  I want to impact my kids in healthy ways...who else, other than your kids, gives you a day-to-day, hour-to-hour audience?  They see me when I wake with bed-head, then through several emotions all day long until I fall into bed at night.  In learning to be consistent with them, my walk with the Lord has become more  consistent.

In friendships, He has taught me the importance of integrity, saying (and hearing) the hard things, and service.  How many times I've been blessed by a friend because they have laid down their own desires or plans for the day to help me with food, or cleaning or even a listening ear. Through friendships,  I have learned how to love others as I love myself.

Even through homeschooling my children, I'm learning the importance of honoring God with my mind and my intellect.  I'm learning about administering grace to the least of these in my home and in turn receiving it because I am so totally unworthy of it.   And to do so with joy.

This is such an amazing shift for me. My life is not so much about being a romantic comedy with a happy ending so much as it is about a divine passion of redemption of my soul!

"For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in [me] will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus."  Philippians 1:6