Hephzibah. Flight.: Remember

Last night William and I were reading our Bibles together. Since he's been in Jeremiah, we began talking about what he has gotten from it and what he thinks. While I was looking along in my Bible, I flipped past Jeremiah 31. Jeremiah 31, for a long time, was my 'season chapter'. Have you ever had a scripture, a word, a mantra, and chapter in the Bible, or an idea that was with you for a long period of time? Something that was so relevant to you for that season you couldn't get away from it. Jeremiah 31 was that for me for about 2 years.

Looking back on that season I can only describe it a few ways:

1. I had said 'yes' (meekly and weakly) to Him doing whatever it took to make me into who He wanted me to be. No matter how uncomfortable or painful it felt.
He promised to me in Chapter 31,
"The people who survive the sword will find favor int he desert; I will come to give rest to Israel"

2. With that statement, God was completely demolishing an 'old house' and building a 'new house' from the ground up.
Jeremiah talks about this idea when He says that He will "uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant"
He spoke to me of broken bones not fully healed needing to be re-broken.

3. He began revealing faulty belief systems I had functioned under and started teaching me new ones.
(What a Father means, that being angry and yelling at Him was OK, and that I was could not continue controlling what I was trying to control if I wanted His best)

4. God was teaching me how to be honest with Him, raw, angry, anything real.
He can take it.

5. I was told to grab a hold of promises that I was not even close to being able to see or feel.
He would talk to me about delivery, pregnancy, birthing pains. About having a promise inside of me grow until His perfect timing when I would 'give birth' to it (I get it, weird). Scriptures like "Do I bring to the moment of birth and not give delivery? Says the Lord" And would understand, in part, the process and journey we were on.

But what did all of that really mean?

A heaping, blubbering, fetal positioned Megan on the floor.

More times than not. Scared more times than brave. Doubtful more times than hopeful. Sad more times than happy. Uncomfortable more times than comfortable.

But determined. Stubborn. Relentless.

Because there was no way I could turn back.

We had already began surgery.

And a patient in the middle of open-heart surgery cannot just get up and decide they don't want it anymore.

And so why do I bring this up? I realized that...

The seasons of brokenness, heartache, and pain are the most powerful and fruitful.

And the season you are reaching for, once arrived, are the most dangerous.

Dangerous because I had forgotten.

Sitting now on the other side of promises fulfilled, healing, wholeness, stability, and peace, it's so easy to lose sight of everything.

Here I am seeing all God said He's do be done.
"As I watched over them to uproot and tear down and to overthrow, destroy and bring disaster, so I will watch over them to build and to plant"
"Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce...".

It didn't matter. I still lost sight of it all somewhere.
I didn't do it on purpose. And it's not like it was super obvious that it happened.
In fact, maybe it was 'the norm' for most people.
It was sort of like what happens when you've been married awhile but stop communicating as much as you used to. Sure, you love them. You may even have a few sweet moments. But some passion is missing, some awe, what you had in the beginning has changed and you don't know how it happened.

I can't let 'the norm' take the place of what He worked so hard to build in me.

I have been given so much so that I can love so much.

I want the fire. I want the discipline. I want the dedication. I want the passion.

"I remember the devotion of your youth, how as a bride you loved me and followed me through the desert, through a land not sown." Jeremiah 2:1

How awful when you realize you are like Israel. You are like the people who you read in these stories only to wonder how they could forget so easily? Neglect so profoundly?

But there is another thing that has been true and woven inside and throughout the entire story of God and Israel....

They were chased by God.

And I have been chased as well by the lover of my soul, Jesus.

He says in Jeremiah 31 that He disciplines me like an unruly calf to restore me, that if I come to Him with my whole heart, He will still be my God, that He redeems me from the hands of those stronger than I, and that He will refresh the weary and faint.

So what now?

Let Him remind me. Let Him bring it all back to memory.

Run whole-heartedly back to the beginning of that story.

Just as a couple has to do when they forget what it was like in the beginning, I will do with Him.

Be more deliberate.

Spend more quality time.

Revisit what once made us so alive.

Listen to what's on His heart.

Thank you Lord for what You did in that season.

Thank You for whispering that I've forgotten.
And thank You that You're not done with me yet.

So, if you've forgotten too...it's not too late to be reminded.

Here's to remembering,

"I will make an everlasting covenant with them, I will never stop doing good to them...I will rejoice in doing them good and will assuredly plant them in this land will all my heart and soul"

Jeremiah 32:40