I’ve always been very opinionated about everything. When I was a freshman in college, everything was black and white to me. One right way to do everything. I had a set of standards for how life worked. And I was right, of course.

Only, I was wrong. Not everything in life is absolute.

See, when you surrender your life to God, he’ll take you up on it. He’ll start stripping away the layers of your heart, dealing with your sin and cleaning out the junk. And that is no fun.

God is about making us new. Taking away the old and replacing it with new.

Three months into my freshman year, I was sitting on my bed making lists of everything I was no longer certain about. I was lonely and struggling in the church I’d committed to attending. I was convinced you don’t leave a church just because you’re not fitting in – you just try harder. God was clearly opening doors at another church for me, but did I ever resist! It wasn’t okay to just leave a church, was it? That’s what selfish people did.

I called my parents, crying, and Dad just told me, “It’s okay, Elizabeth. It’s not as terrible as it seems.” “But Dad, this new church does things differently than I’m used to!” “Elizabeth, change is okay.” Dad’s words gave me the release I needed. I did try the other church – and stayed for the next 4 1/2 years, and was blessed beyond words by those believers.

At the Christmas concert that semester an artist named Jason Gray sang these words:

With everyday
You strip more away
And You peel back the bark
And tear me apart
To get to the heart
Of what matters most
I’m cold and I’m scared
As your love lays me bare
But in the shaping of my soul
The blade must take it’s toll
So God give me strength to know
That the cut makes me whole

That song defined most of my time in college. God was pruning my heart so new branches could grow there and bring forth more fruit to honor him.

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