change. where's the fruit?

Where have I been? Not that you have been wondering...but I have! This walk with God is sometimes scary for me because I am so confused by my human condition. I really have this expectation that He will TRANSFORM me into someone I like. Where is the fruit of the spirit? ....I can't see it in me and it hurts and scares me. Should I still be a person who is in continual battle with life's temptations, failures, successes, ups  and downs, and general state of being. I have this definition implanted in my brain about what is normal, good, and balanced and I'm not it! Often my friends say I'm too hard on myself but how can I get "better" if I don't examine the things that are holding me back from the life God wants for me? Sometimes I don't even feel confident that I know His will and other times I am over confident. In the past 2 weeks so much has happened that I have just "shut down." My own children's lives, the murder of my my friends son, the lack of direct direction from trying to pray. Many of the Casting Crowns songs Mark Hall writes I identify with. and that lost scary alone feeling has returned several times. I share this because I love Jesus and can't bear the thought of losing touch. I'm lonely and isolated by choice sometimes (by fear and panic i can't seem to control) and now living alone with my 14 year old who hates me to the core is overwhelming. 

So what good is it to expose all this "weakness" and share it with you? Paul's words.in his vision and His Thorn

2 Corinthians 12:7-10

7 To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.

10 That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 

I have to claim that I don't believe it is because of any great  revelation that my "thorns" have not been removed but I do believe that God's wisdom is to use me, thorns and all. I do admit that my greatest fear sometimes is that I keep "defects" he wants to remove to NOT FEEL. That is a circular pattern and my honesty will depend on my TRUE faith. 

The mirror of truth --do I really want to look? I can use scripture all day to justify anything but is it in context with the truth? 

I'm not sure I have the courage but listen to this song and tell me what you think.


I love the lyrics.......