Freed to Be Used

Acorn lesson number two came as a surprise.  Weeks before I had read about the acorn serving as a food source for both man and animal.  In fact, acorns were ground into meal and used in many dishes by early Americans providing needed sustenance.  Acorns must be rendered edible for man’s consumption.  The acorn’s tough shell houses the nut meat and a bitter substance called tannin.  This substance protects the nut, but must be leeched before grinding the nut meat into flour or meal.  Keep in mind tannin is used to tan hides – to turn soft skins into leather.

Given this information, I began to meditate on how this might apply to my life in terms of becoming a source of nourishment for others.  Up until this point, I had thought more about kingdom multiplication, lives being generated both biologically and spiritually through my life and my descendants' lives.  Now a new truth to chew on: God desires my life be made suitable for consumption by others.  With loving determination and at my invitation, God has purposed to leech from my heart every vestige of bitterness so that I might better participate with Him in sustaining life.  Scripture teaches, "To whom much is given, much is required."  In this busy season, I've needed to appreciate afresh God's fervent desire to match my life requirements by continually giving the more needed -- more freedom with more responsibility, more rest in the context of more work.  The Giver of every perfect gift, He lives to give!!

Aware of some bad attitudes with unidentified roots, I had been asking God to “free me up!”  Pleased to oblige, He unearthed a deep and gnarled root this week and began a cleansing, softening process.  Leeching involves a series of “washings” – water baths to draw out undesired sources of bitterness; pleasant bubble baths they are not!!  I have been washed in tubs of tears as God has led me to honestly confess deeply painful feelings, boiling them down to one to be reckoned with:  feeling used, not cared for.  Elaborating would not edify anyone, safe to say that God is at work following my admission, preparing me to be VOLUNTARILY CONSUMED – spent for His glory in the care of others.  I’ve wondered if in the process He might also be preparing me to trust, as a tiny child resting on His strong and mighty arm, and as a woman willing to risk sharing her beauty, free at last from the shell of self-protection, ground into fine nutritious meal at the cross.

Oh the beauty of self-forgetfulness!!

Nourished to Sustain Others,

Terry 
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