Something mysterious seems to happen to our loaves of bread. It most happen some time between the moment that the loaves of bread get pulled off the grocery store shelf, until minutes before I go to take them out of our bread box. At some point in between those two events, the metamorphosis of our bread occurs. It is quite fascinating really and all the children in our home have their various theories on how the transformation occurs.
Sometimes the bread is flattened from an assaulting green bean can tossed at damaging speeds by an innocent little two-year old riding along in the cart above. Other times, it is flattened by the sudden impact of the store floor after soaring down from the amazing heights reached after a four-year old tosses it higher than one could imagine. I have even witnessed every piece of a loaf of bread falling to the unsanitary floor after being taken from the shelf by a seven-year old. (Evidently this loaf had been left open by some person who perhaps took a wrongful grab to rob the loaf of one of its pieces and then decided to put it back on the shelf.)
Whatever may cause it, one thing is for sure: it is not easy to make a sandwich with squished bread. It just can’t hold what it is meant to hold and it loses its soft texture. I microwave it and stretch it to try to get it back into the shape it was intended. It is a process, and it is not always a successful one. I’ve done it enough now to realize a few things.
In this life, we can be physically and spiritually assaulted. We can find ourselves emotionally flattened after being elevated then brought low. Our minds can be dirtied and our hearts grabbed at and robbed of small pieces. Many times, who we are looks nothing like who we were made by God to be. The good news is that God can reshape us. It may mean getting stretched beyond what we perceive as our limits. It may mean going through some heat for a short time. God’s way of reshaping us is mysterious indeed.
I am learning that when I feel stretched the furthest it is not because God is trying to break me. When I feel the heat I believe it is because God is trying to make me into the woman he created me to be, a woman made in the image of Christ. Am I in perfect shape now? I am far from it. But I am confidant that he will bring me home in perfect shape if I keep placing myself in his hands and that is what matters most.
But as for me, behold, I am in your hands. Do with me as seems good and right to you. Jeremiah 26:14 (ESV)
