Refinement—A Beautiful Healing Journey

“Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a loyal spirit within me. Don’t keep looking at my sins. Remove the stain of my guilt. Oh, give me back my joy again; you have broken me— now let me rejoice. Purify me from my sins, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.” Psalms 51:7-10 NLT

 Beautiful Younger Soul,

 What do you do when you know that God wants to refine you, but you’re not ready? Do you let Him, or are you like me and “try” to delay the refinement as long as possible? Try is the keyword here because it usually happens when God wants it and not when I want it.

I’m sure you’ve heard that song “Refiner” by Maverick City Music. When I first heard this song, I remember crying and thinking that I couldn’t sing this song with all of my heart. I knew that the day that I sang it with all honesty and with all of my heart, God would begin a refinement in my life, which meant that I would hurt in some way. The thought of being refined and going through the fire was not something I wanted. Every time “Refiner” played on Spotify, I would cry, and I would say, “Not yet, Lord, I’m not ready.”

Here is the thing, my Beautiful, Younger Soul; God will have to refine you whether you wanted it or not. He needs to do it for you to move into the next season. Sometimes, you just have to let Him in. You can’t delay the refinement too long because you might just miss a blessing that God has for you! So, you might be wondering right now how did my refinement come? How did I finally accept my refinement, and what happened?

I had just turned 31 years old, and I was celebrating with some friends. I was in the car with one of my friends, and we were listening to her playlist. It was a great drive, and we were singing along. Halfway to our destination, “Refiner” played, and the tears began. I knew in my heart that if I continued like this, I would miss out on a blessing, and I would delay my next season. I prayed a simple prayer, “God do what You need to do. Refine me; I want to be consumed by Your fire. Clean my hands and purify my heart. Take away what You want away from my life. Here is my life.” It was a simple, short, and honest prayer.

What happened next? Nothing. For a moment, I thought, I had made a huge deal about this song, and God didn’t want to refine my life after all. Actually, I stopped crying whenever I heard the song. What a relief! But…

Remember, it’s not our time; it’s God’s time.

Earlier this year, one of my pastors told me, “a couple of days ago, I had a dream about you; in the dream, God was doing some deep healing from your past, and you were telling me about it. When I woke up in the morning, I found myself still praying for you and with a sense the Lord was bringing some deep healing to your life“. When my pastor told me this, I didn’t realize that God was beginning my refinement, and it’s not over.

The first thing I noticed was that tears began to flow easier. I hate crying, but lately, it feels that everything makes me cry. It feels that God is taking my heart and softening every area. He is taking the callous and rough areas of my heart, and He is sanding them down in a very specific way. I try to contain the tears, but the tears just keep pouring out from within. However, with each tear, I feel lighter and lighter. Tears are cleaning my heart.

As the tears are cleaning my heart, they are exposing the areas in my heart that I thought I had healed, but in reality, I put a Band-Aid over it. One of those areas was unforgiveness. There were people in my life who did a lot of damage. In some cases, all the pain turned into bitterness and resentment. I know it’s not pretty, but the truth is rarely pretty, especially when it comes to matters of the heart. God showed me earlier this year that I had not forgiven some people. He showed me that I had persuaded myself to believe that I had forgiven whole-heartedly, but in reality, I had put a wall around it to hide it away. I also put up a wall in my heart and did not allow people in because I couldn’t trust them. God had to do a deep refinement in my heart. I had to confront the unforgiveness and talk to some of these people face-to-face and ask for forgiveness and forgive them as well. It hasn’t been easy. In fact, it has been hard, and I didn’t want to do it, but God is purifying my heart. This part hurt but now, I’m able to forgive quicker and begin to trust people and let them in my heart.

As God is refining my life, He has also touched my friends. I’m not saying that my friends were bad influences in my life, but God didn’t intend them to be in life forever, and they were meant to be in my life for a season and not for the journey. Losing some of these people have hurt because they were dear to my heart, but God had other plans. He is refining my friends because, as one of my mentors put it, “these are people that you cannot take with you into your next season because instead of being a blessing, they will stop your growth.”

A few weeks ago, I was invited to a cottage for the weekend. There was a moment where I was alone while my friends were taking a nap. I was listening to my music as I watched the storm. I began to cry again. The tears were flowing as fast as the rain. It was pouring down hard, and my heartfelt heavy. I began to complain to God and asked Him why was He taking away my friends and why was I crying all the time? Watching the rain shouldn’t make anyone cry, right? As I was complaining, guess what song began to play? Yep, “Refiner.” As I kept pouring out my heart to the Lord, He brought the car ride and my prayer to my memory. I felt Him whisper into my heart, “You asked me to refine you. This is what refinement looks like. This is what purifying you looks like. I know you’re hurting, but I’m here with you. I got you.” What do you tell the Lord after He tells you that? Nothing. I cried and played the song over and over again.

My Beautiful Younger Soul, now I understand that my refinement is not over. Actually, it will never end because I’m a broken person, and there will always be areas in my life that will need refinement. My refinement will end the day the Lord calls me into his presence; I will always be under refinement until then. I’m no longer afraid of refinement. I’m learning to embrace my refinement because, with each refinement, I shine brighter, and I’m healing. Do not be afraid of refinement, my Younger Soul. I won’t lie, it will hurt, but you will find that your heart is lighter. You will find yourself shining brighter than gold, and it’s a beautiful healing journey.

Love,

Older & Much Wiser You

Source: Letters to my Younger Soul. Refinement—A Beautiful Healing Journey. 2021.

https://www.letterstomyyoungersoul.com/post/refinement-a-beautiful-healing-journey