Dry Girl, Dry

My little sister and I were together one day to do some of our “healing” work. She worked in her guide as I sat with my book and notepad ready to write my reflections. She had gotten up and started to wash dishes during our conversation about relationships. While doing so, she had this great epiphany that she was excited to tell me about, though I wasn’t so excited to hear.

She said that when one washes dishes, we don’t immediately put them in the cabinet. Rather, we set them in a rack and let them dry. She said in the same way, God often has to soak us, scrub us, rinse us, and then set us down for a season before we’re ready to be put back in the cabinet that we may be chosen and used for His good works.

Seasons of relational turmoil, sexual brokenness, failure and loss, abuse of any and every kind, and corrupted hearts and minds, require God to cleanse us from those experiences. The mistake that we make is when we try to rush back into the next assignment, position, or relationship without allowing him to do this work. The drying period is not punishment but rest. Often it seems and feels like the former to our anxious souls though. I’ve been there. I’m still there.

Two years ago I knew my ship was going under again. And instead of accepting the need to abandon it, I kept trying to siphon out the raging waters that were rushing in from every side. Like a boat that cracks under the pressure of a mighty blow, my soul had been fractured too. This was the very last of its undoing. I went under and settled at the bottom of the ocean seemingly never to rise again.

God had a plan for my pit. For the waters that had plunged me to defeat. He would use them to wash me. He would use those cracked boards as the sandpaper to scrub my rugged, hard heart. I hated it with the hate that boiled over within me. And I just wanted it to be over and fast.

It was a long season of cleansing. A long season of rewashing because I kept re-soiling myself. And long because it was just that much debris that had piled on and gotten stuck to me. It became evident that I wasn’t going to get completely clean until God allowed me to just soak. To not be touched by the contaminants in the atmosphere. So soak I did. For seven months.

I can now look back and say I’m thankful for the entirety of the season. I needed it though I didn’t want it. I’m grateful that God knew that I needed Him to be a protective daddy who would put up fences around me because I was prone to run back into the street and mud.

I had to fight not to jump the fence or bust through the gate the entire way. I kept seeing things I wanted. Things I believed even God wanted for me. Just not right now. And He was right. Further inspection revealed there were still some more crusted areas in my soul that needed tending to. He’s dipped me again and again. Not ready yet. He’s set me in the rack because it’s better yet it’s not done. Before I can be moved to the China cabinet, He says, dry girl, dry.

Where are you: the sink, the drying rack, the China cabinet, or the table? Are you where you need to be in this season? Did you move too quickly and do you need to go back to repeat a step? Ask God to help you accept and trust the process even if you don’t like it.

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