Remembering Where I Came From

I see growth in you, she says.  Evidences of grace. 

I know! I giggle, mostly to myself.  From across the couch, she smiles at me.  And then my little giggle turns into a full, toothy grin, a hearty chortle that sounds ridiculous, like something between a man and a donkey.  But I don't care.

In that moment, I can look back.  I look back at the girl I was 2 years ago, on the brink of a life-changing discovery I didn't even know was happening.  I look back, and I laugh.

The kind of laughter that only the redemption of Christ could bring to someone looking back at their life, so deep in sin and death and pain.

5 weeks later, I'm walking out of the grocery store, laughing the same laugh.  Another friend has told me something similar.  And I can't help but smile with joy.

It's fun, I say.  It's just fun!

She smiles.  You're adorable.

I smile back.  Here's what makes me laugh, I say, I get to pray, for the rest of my life, that God would grow me in a way that I would not recognize myself year to year.  I can grow as fast as I want, and I don't ever have to worry about getting to the end.   God will never run out of things to teach me!

That's true, she replies with a chuckle, clearly enjoying watching me sound like a 5-year-old who has just learned a basic but awe-inspiring fact of life.

It's fun, mostly because it has nothing to do with me.  Absolutely nothing to do with me.

Sometimes I lament that I am not, and can never be, that girl who has never known life apart from Christ.  I lament the lost years, the tearing down of what I built up in order that God might build instead.  I want to regain the lost years of a relationship with my God.

But then I remember that I get to experience the redemption of Christ in a unique way, because I walked in rebellion for so long.  Not that my experience is better than someone else's, it is just different.  I have gotten to experience different facets of the same Gospel.  

And so I remember as I walk, that God is teaching me.  Slowly transforming me from one degree of glory to another, day by day.  And it is beautiful. 

Because it is all about Him.