Not Who I Was

Today I went to a Christian bookstore to buy some Thank you cards.  I’m sending lots out to lovely people who are supporting me.  I had a 25% off coupon so was also looking at cards and books in Spanish.  A store clerk approached to ask if I would like to purchase a Spanish New Testament through the James Fund and World Vision to send to Latin America.  As seems to always happen these days, I told him I was heading to the D.R. to do mission work, and we got to chatting about how amazing Jesus is.  He asked if he could pray for me, and so we stood in the store, and he held my hand and prayed for me.

The most amazing thing about all of this is how unlike me it is.  I am a strong-preference introvert and am not the kind of person who strikes up conversations with strangers.  I can go an entire Saturday without talking with anyone and be perfectly content.  But, lately, I just can’t seem to stop telling people about what God is doing in my life.  And, many times, I’m finding lots of really unexpected – and awesome! – connections with others as I share.

And not just on Saturdays.  I’ve made new friends at Gold’s Gym – and even had two of them pray for me right in the middle of the weights!  A phone call to a brokerage firm, and my comment about needing another church Signatory because I am leaving, led to a conversation about her teen daughter’s interest in missions.  Talking with one of the gals working at my new eye doctor revealed she had lived in Guatemala, not too far from Antigua (where I will be in language school).    

Beyond the amazing external stuff – and believe me, it is amazing! – is how God is continuing to work inside of me.  There’s a song by a Christian artist named Jason Gray which says, “I am not who I was, I’m being remade, I am new.”   It is such a comfort to know that God is continuing to transform me.  I can honestly say that I have been changing in the four months since I said Yes to serving with Students International. 

I haven’t talked about my ‘thorn’ in a while.  It is still a bother and I’m still very self-conscious about it.  I still spend more time worrying about it than I would like to admit.  But, even in this, I am seeing God changing me.  God has used it as a place of deep connection with a sister-in-Christ carrying a similar burden.  I find myself more able to see others for who they are inside.  I am more than how much hair I have (or don’t have!), and others are more than how much they weigh, or the state of their education/job/finances, if they are old or young.  They are even more than their own ‘thorn’.  Being able to speak that truth to another is something I am learning to do through God’s transforming power. 

I still have plenty of areas where Old Kim is holding sway, but I know that the Holy Spirit is making me new in His power.  If God can move in and through me to be a little less shy about talking to someone about how amazing He is, I know He can continue to do far more than I could ask or even imagine.

Take heart, friends!  In Christ, you are not who you once were.  We were all His enemies.  That's who we were, and we were hopeless to do anything about it.  But our hope and help is in the fact that through Jesus’ sacrifice, we not only stopped being enemies, we became adopted children of the King. 

And now, as part of His family, we are given His family traits – His Spiritual fruit.  As the Spirit moves in us, we become more and more like the One who saved us.  Let’s celebrate the fact that in Jesus we are being remade.  Let’s celebrate that for each other.  We are not who we were!  We are not yet who we will be, but, oh, praise God, we are being remade!