“Honor the space between no longer and not yet.” Nancy Levin

It’s been quite a while since I have written in this space! I’m grateful to and encouraged by those of you who have continually asked, “Have you posted anything lately?”  or “What’s going on with the blog?”   It’s nice to know that others are reading, looking forward to what I have to share, are able to find themselves in my story and, prayerfully, learning and growing in their personal journeys to the Father’s heart.

I am back after a year of transition and transformation, a year of revelation and rediscovery, a year of remembrance and return.   I am refueled. I am refocused, and I invite you to join me on a journey over the next year – a journey through “the space between.”

2016 was not without its challenges for me and I know that is true for you.  That’s the nature of this journey – life happens and it’s not all grand, expected or desired.  It’s often in those times that we may question the most, and it’s in the questioning that God speaks words to help us see more clearly, words to encourage us to stay the course, words that simply cause us to remain rooted  to what we know to be true.

2016  also was filled with various transitions which, by transition’s very nature, brought some loss and varying levels of surrender. But as challenging as transition can be, I have been able to see purpose and destiny unfold in greater magnitude.  I have been reminded that God’s desire in my life is  transformation and that the process is as important as the end result.  Transition is  a vehicle by which God changes us  and in many ways brings us to a place of  unbecoming  in order to become.

It was in  the midst of  a particularly difficult transition that  I was gently reminded of words that Holy Spirit spoke to me some 16 years ago. Hearing these words again allowed me to see with greater clarity how every detail of my life is intricately woven into purpose, calling and destiny.  Helped me understand that the process is intrinsically connected to the gifts, both natural and spiritual, He has deposited in me.  Helped to see the  necessity of utilizing every vehicle, every platform available to me as opportunity to share my life, my journey, my process with others.

It was a March night in 2001 and I was sitting in Christ Hospital’s ER.   My friend had been experiencing  excruciating headaches and, unable to bear the pain any longer, had asked me to take her to Emergency Room to hopefully get some answers and relief.  While I waited for her to return from X-ray, Holy Spirit began to speak to me concerning calling — specifically the call to teach — and how He purposed to use my life as a teaching tool.

“. . . Track the process. . .  I Am showing you through your life the process that moves you to perfection in Me — the process that leads to true transformation.  The Word being made flesh in you. Track the process.  Your life is the lesson!  Your life is the course!  Track the process and see how all things work together.  Track the process that continues from glory to glory to ultimate glory. Track the process  from larva to butterfly. Track the process.  Your life is the lesson…”

 I’ve not always been intentional to “track the process” in formal ways. But I can recognize that each moment  I surrender more deeply to His process,  I am changed in ways that are often imperceptible to me.  I am unbecoming all I thought I was in order to become all God knows I am.   And in the process, I am coming to know and love the Deborah that He created me to be – the one He has always seen and has always loved.

In order for us to fully engage in and enjoy the life Christ  affords us through His finished work on the cross, we must allow ourselves to be transformed,  we must yield to the process.   God is changing us, yes, into the likeness of His dear Son, but also into the beautifully, fearfully and wonderfully made, unique individuals He always intended us to be in Him.

I dare say that many of us have not been fully introduced to our true selves. And when we have been given glimpses, we’ve often rejected that image of Christ uniquely revealed in and through us.  We are able to see our “caterpillar” selves, but unable to recognize the butterfly within longing to soar!

And so I invite you this year to walk through the process of unbecoming to become with me.  To step into the “space in between” with me – the beautiful and the ugly of it, the sweet and bitter of it, the magnificent and the seemingly insignificant of it,  with all its forward steps, backward steps, side steps, missteps and sometimes no steps.  That space with all the angst that comes with the uncertainty the process brings, but filled with the promise of possibility  found in the God with Whom  all things are possible.   The space filled with wonder and the opportunity to see and know God in deeper, fuller, richer ways and the chance  to know as we are known.    It’s the place of our  restoration and renewal.   There we will see how God, indeed,  causes all  things to work together for good to bring us to our perfected end in Him. And I promise,  what will emerge in the process will astound you!

I challenge you to track the process of your life!  Your life is a lesson!

Together let’s  “honor the space between no longer and not yet.”

Deborah