Gem by Gem

All of these Gems I have been sharing. . . 

They have come through a process. . . 

In a process. 

By a process.

My first year at college was especially hard for me emotionally. I was twenty-three years old, and was in many ways at the end of my rope, going out on a limb, praying for, I don't even know what exactly. 

College wasn't the issue -- I readily ate up the studies, the schedules, all the new interactions with people.

The hard part for me was that I was coming out of an abusive situation and entering for the first time in my life a place that would become a safe "home" for me. And that, that safety would become a catalyst in my soul that would bring on the beginning of the unraveling of many hurts. 

I remember the first time I reached out to one of the counselors at school for some help regarding a particular issue I was wrestling with. 

His main piece of advice for me was to give myself grace and to realize, embrace, and accept life as a process. 

You see, when something is "wrong", I want to "fix" it right away. I want to know what is wrong, why it's wrong, and what to do about it. 

The problem for me though was that I was walking out of a place in a life that had me long enveloped in a cloud of internal confusion. 

I wasn't going to be able to snap my fingers and get it all together overnight. And there wasn't going to be a simple solution or easy answer. 

What it was going to be was the beginning of a process. . . 

An emotional healing process. 

And it was going to take time. 

That is when I first really got a hold of the "Gem by Gem" concept. 

That God would build me, heal me, one touch, one day, one season at a time. 

I was to be patient. 

And I was to trust the process, and Him in the process. 

Long before that day in the counselor's office though, God had already begun building up my soul with Gems. 

He captured my heart as a little girl. I had already trusted Him and known Him to be a faithful and guiding presence through-out my life leading up to these pivitol moments in my soul. 

He had already begun weaving bits of Truth into my soul. 

Bits of truth, that, as I would take in and accept, would changed me in some way that over the long course of time. . .

Prove good for and benefit my soul. 

And that's how God works. That's how He works in us. He works with and in us by process. 

"All" we have to do is:

- Accept that this is how He works

- Allow the Truths He offers to instill in our   souls to change us 

- And, trust Him, remembering that He is good

That's "all". 

A lifetime of looking for truth, submitting ourselves to it, and surrendering to the One who is building us, Gem by Gem by Gem with and through it. 

And in and by this building process of the soul. . . 

We find ourselves being set free. 

Sometimes through pivotal moments like I experienced in college, but mostly it is through the daily Gem by Gem building that leads up to them. 

The building of Truth in us, over time, setting our souls free. . .

By process.