When the rains come, everything changes so quickly. It can be blazing hot and sunny, and within 5 minutes it is cloudy and windy. Doors around my house are slamming shut and the sky is getting darker and darker. I have never heard thunder so loud in all my life. People have been praying for the rain to come – and it has arrived in full force! I am loving rainy season – my hair is not.

I love when it gets dark, windy and stormy. I usually have a warm drink and watch from the window. Never in my life have I sat and reflected so much until coming to Zambia; and the loud rains pouring down on my tin roof always help to relax me. I think to myself over and over again that the Lord had to literally pluck me out of my comfort zone and daily routine back in Canada for this particular time in my life, in order for me to really learn, grow and hear His voice. There are things that I am learning that I think to myself I’ve been a Christian for so long, and I’m just getting this now? I know that our walk with the Lord is a relationship that we are constantly learning from and growing with – and yes, through life I have been stretched, convicted and taught tough lessons, but it hasn’t been until coming here that those things are happening a lot more often and usually very close together.

And with all of the lessons that I’m learning, there are days where it feels like the Lord is (lovingly) ripping my heart apart in order for me to be renewed and refined.

He is teaching me the importance of praying for grace and patience towards the sweet grocery store cashier and the mini bus driver who just cut me off. He’s teaching me to extend true compassion when I see a friend going through very difficult days. He’s teaching me to get rid of my pride when I forget that I am not here to point out what people have done wrong, but to work together with them and help as a team. He’s teaching me to see things in a different perspective when I see children whose life is more difficult than I will ever have to go through.

Ultimately He is teaching me that He is way more concerned with changing my heart and my mind, then changing my circumstances.

And as much as it’s hard, embarrassing, and truly sucks to see the state of your heart, I welcome it. I encourage you to welcome it in your life too. I welcome the Lord to do what He wants in me and through me because really at the end of the day, it’s not about me. Yes, the Lord cares for me; He cares for us, but it’s about Him being glorified in me while sifting through the junk in the process.