You know what one of my favorite things is? Brand new peanut butter. You open up the jar and peel back the safety seal and smell the yummy goodness… but most of all? You see the perfectly smooth surface. No scoop marks or bread crumbs. Untouched and full of potential to become anything. Peaceful. Ready to team up with jelly or chocolate or bananas and bring joy to the world. My family knows I love this so much that they will scoop what they need out of one side if they have to use the new jar, so I can still see it. That is real love.
I’ve tried to recreate that fresh, new surface. Smoothed out the top… filled in the dips… shaken the jar. No matter how hard I shake or how much I push that peanut butter around, it never looks quite the same as it did when I first opened it up.
We come into this world with smooth hearts. Peaceful and full of the potential to become anything. Then life happens. We scoop out pieces to give to others, and forget to fill it back in for ourselves. Hard things come along and poke at the surface. Sometimes, they dig in deep and leave scars and crumbs of pain and bitterness. Splinters of whatever thing stabbed us.
We need healing from all of what life does to our hearts.
God can heal us in an instant. And sometimes, that is how He works. I spent years praying for a specific healing, until one night He called me to obedience and answered my prayer in the moment I said yes. Sometimes, He chooses a longer path. He prunes us to bear more fruit and refines us to make us strong enough for what He is calling us to do.
He teaches us how to lean into His presence to be filled, rather than looking to others or to the busyness that life so “freely” offers. All of those chunks that we scoop out to give away… and the ones that get scooped out without our choosing… leave empty places. They drain our energy and our capacity for love. We have to fill them back in as they are scooped out in order to be whole. To be strong. To do all we are called to do.
He digs out the junk that life leaves behind. Those crumbs of bitterness mar the surface of our hearts. They leave a taste that will spread into everything we touch if we leave them there. It’s not what God wants for us. It’s just not. Jesus wants to pull out all the splinters in your heart. But you have to let Him. Some of them have dug in deep and pulling them out hurts. The holes they leave have to heal. But oh my friend, the peace that follows the pain is so very worth it.
Life is messy. We can easily end up with a rough surface… and an even more mixed up spirit. We trip over rocks that could be stepping stones and get trapped in the lies we have started to believe. Smoothing all that out is near impossible on our own. We cannot shake ourselves enough without breaking. The Father shakes us. He holds us together through the shaking. Breaks loose what holds us down. Puts things back in place. He restores what has been scooped out and given away. All that has been taken.
I have learned that I can’t heal my own heart. I can do the work. I can walk a path of obedience. I can shake things up and scrape away what doesn’t belong in my life. But I can’t erase all the marks. Only God can do that. Only He can make it new. Whole. Perfect.
Peanut butter healing.
You have to rest in the Father’s hands and let Him do the work. It might not be easy. He might have to shake you. Scrape things away. Pick out the bits and the crumbs that life has left where they don’t belong. But He will never leave you or forsake you, and His shaking is always worth it.
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