On the day of my deliverance from depression, I chose to actively participate in my faith, a choice I must repeat every morning. Only when I make that choice does my joy become so real, so immeasurable, so uncontainable that I must share it, just as I am sharing it with you today. I became ready to really live my life without ever having to relive old thought patterns, old mistakes, old worries, old pain. And the transformation goes on.
This past weekend I attended a scrapbooking retreat at a beach house on Tybee Island, just outside of Savannah. A few months ago I found out in a round-about way that an old high school friend lives in a suburb of Savannah too. So I arranged to have dinner with him and meet his new wife and their kids for the first time! I originally met this friend in Massachusetts a few months after I went on that weekend retreat at age 14, and he, in fact, met me as “Charlie.” Over the last 20 years, the Lord has reunited us every few years to catch up on each other’s lives—to celebrate each other’s blessings, to grieve each other’s heartaches, and to watch the transformations continue through season after season of God’s faithfulness.
As I drove to his house Monday night, I was listening to a CD I had given my husband for his birthday this past February. The song is called, “All This Time” by Nicole Britt. Here I feel compelled to share it in its entirety because it literally tells my story that began in 1993 on that weekend retreat and continues…with every day’s sunrise:
I remember the moment, I remember the pain
I was only a girl, but I grew up that day
Tears were falling
I know You saw meHiding there in my bedroom, so alone
I was doing my best, trying to be strong
No one to turn to
That’s when I met YouAll this time, from the first tear cried
‘Till today’s sunrise
And every single moment between
You were there, You were always there
It was You and I
You’ve been walking with me all this timeEver since that day, it’s been clear to me
That no matter what comes, You will never leave
I know You’re for me
And You’re restoringEvery heartache and failure, every broken dream
You’re the God who sees, the God who rescued me
This is my story
This is my story(Chorus)
I hear these people asking me
How do I know what I believe
Well, I’m not the same me, and that’s all the proof I need
I felt love, I felt Your grace
You stole my heart that day
…You’ve been walking with me all this time…
This is all the proof I need of God’s grace and love—“I’m not the same me.” Not just on the outside. Sure, I was anorexic and “too thin,” as my friend reminisced Monday night, and I’m nowhere near that thin now. But my outward appearance does not fully tell of the heart’s transformation that God brings to pass as He walks with me every single day. This transformation can only come to pass as my soul is tested and tried, penetrated and purified, just as it is written in 1 Peter 1:6-7:
In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Or even better, I like how it is put in The Message version:
I know how great this makes you feel, even though you have to put up with every kind of aggravation in the meantime. Pure gold put in the fire comes out of it proved pure; genuine faith put through this suffering comes out proved genuine. When Jesus wraps this all up, it’s your faith, not your gold, that God will have on display as evidence of his victory.
My proven faith, come the Last Day, will be evidence of God’s victory. My faith. And the faith of countless more which has been proven genuine through trial after trial after trial. And what an amazing privilege that every now and then I can gather with old friends, share stories of those trials and the victories that have come of them, and together stand as an arrow pointing straight to heaven for those who have yet to receive the revelation of Jesus Christ.
While we may relive memories of good times and bad, each sunrise we live a new life, a changed life, a water-into-wine life—“worthy of the Lord…steadily growing and increasing in and by the knowledge of God” (Col. 1:10).
The Art of Choosing True Life 