The saying, “Big Hot Mess”, has new meaning to me. I just watched a video by Steve Harvey, and he broke it down simply. Let’s see if I can do the same.
I like simple. There is nothing fancy about me, but I’m happy. I had fancy, but my life was not a happy life. I could walk through my home, and see pretty things, but I couldn’t look in a mirror.
You see, my then husband and I were living above our means. We were buying all these beautiful, expensive things, and putting them on credit cards. That will be in the book I’m writing, but I haven’t needed to use a credit card in 5 years. Lesson learned.
Steve Harvey used to work for Ford Motor Company. He was a foundry which builds the engine block. The block is the foundation of the engine. You have to have a solid block before adding pieces to the engine. It all begins with scraps. Twenty something years later, Steve is a spokesman for Ford.
Ford uses scrap metal to build their engine blocks. The scraps are laying in a junk yard, and look useless. Are you underneath a pile of junk? Like some of the things that are happening in your life right now feel overwhelming? You may be in the furnace being melted, so God can use you!
When I was willing to let all that stuff go. To walk out of the glass house I had built for myself, it was like God said, “Yay! There you are. Let’s get to work!!!”
You see, I was a mess. I felt like a car that had been wrecked. I was so tired of keeping up with the Jones’, and I didn’t even know anybody with the last name Jones!
All the pieces of my past. Everything I had been through were piling up. I was my own personal junkyard, and the pile was getting pretty intense! Then here comes God.
Steve Harvey showed a video of how an engine block is made. They would dump all that scrap metal into a fiery furnace, and it would melt down into liquid form. A machine would pour the liquid into a mold, and here comes my favorite part…A giant claw would come by and grab the mold! Have you been melted down, and then grabbed by God?
Well, hold on tight baby cuz this is where it gets good!!!
Going through Breast Cancer last year changed me. I had been writing for three years, and felt like I was doing okay with it. Those three years were my ‘push ups’.
Can you do pushups? They start out small, but the more you do them, the better it gets. What starts out with 5 pushups, goes to 10 pretty soon, and as long as you keep doing it, (like writing, and publishing each Blog), you are at 100 before you know it.
Well, I had written over 350 posts, and found out I have Cancer. I wrote less last year, but when I could think, I wrote. God was refining me. He used what I was going through not only to encourage others, but to melt me down, and pour me into His mold for me.
When I first started writing, I was covered in junk. Writing has been a very healing process, but you see, I was choosing what to write. I was picking up a piece from the top of the pile, and writing about that. I would ask God to bless it and write it.
Then after doing so many pushups, I was getting stronger but not becoming more brave. I was not brave enough to share the really good stuff. The stuff that was painful to share. That is where Cancer came in. Through Cancer, God made me brave.
Steve mentions in the video that once the hot liquid becomes solid, his job was to hit it with a sledgehammer. Wait….I’m having a Pat Benatar moment.
After about 3 weeks into Chemo, I would come home and pass out. It started off slow and was a gradual buildup of the toxins invading my body to kill that major toxin. Once I had more of the bad stuff in me, than good, God would hit me with his mighty hand.
Like a sledgehammer.
People would ask me what it felt like to have Chemo. I would sorta laugh and tell them, “It feels like being hit by something a lot bigger than me!” My God is big!
Steve would hit the block with a sledgehammer, to make sure it was solid. To make sure there were no air holes, or loose pieces. Then here comes the best part. If it passed the test….wait, did you get that? Let me write it in bold for ya….”If it passed the test…“, the block would continue down the conveyor belt and start receiving additional pieces.
Am I preachin good? We have to be solid before God will add anything else!!!
If you have made it this far into what I’ve been trying to share, you are a Badass! This is probably one of my longer ones, but it has been spirit led. I will not put any restraints on what God wants me to share. No more picking what to write from the top of the pile.
I know you have already spent a good chunk of your time with me, and I am grateful, but if you can spare 30 more minutes, here is the video by Steve Harvey. Be blessed.
This is not the first time, and I hope it won’t be the last. To hear it is oh so sweet.
