Dear Friends,
I hope you’re having a wonderful fall time of making memories with your family!
This last week my husband and I went with our kids to get some pumpkins to carve for our fall season. Just last year at about this time we had gone to a pumpkin farm where there was a lady selling special pumpkin carving tools. In order to promote her kit of tools, she was carving a goofy face into a massive pumpkin. Her artful work caught our attention, and we gladly watched her work for quite some time. After seeing what she was doing, we were inspired to give it a try, and so we decided to buy the kit of tools she was selling.
Last year we learned quite a bit about carving pumpkins that we didn’t really know before. We learned what would and wouldn’t work through some failures and successes we had. We were also very disappointed when the pumpkins we’d worked so hard on shriveled up into mushy piles of mold within just a few days. We had kept them inside so we could look at them, but this year we know better to leave them outside where they stay cold and preserved. We also learned that we should have put bleach on and in them to keep the mold at bay.
Last year I tried to be original, and carve leaves into my pumpkin. It didn’t turn out well, my design we too intricate, and it turned out more like a mishmash of weird shaped holes. So this year as I sat looking at my pumpkin, I decided to stick with the most common tradition, and I carved a face into my pumpkin.
I felt a little like Michelangelo. I’ve heard it said that he always thought of his sculpture as being inside the stone, and it was his job to carve away the excess material that was covering it up. He felt that as he carved, he was revealing what was already inside the stone. I imagined the face of my pumpkin guy being in there, and it was my job to carve it all away and find him.
As I carved, my kids began to say things like, “He’s starting to come out of the pumpkin now, Mom!”
It has reminded me of this scripture:
For we are God’s [own] handiwork (His workmanship), 
recreated in Christ Jesus, [born anew] that we may do those good works which God predestined (planned beforehand) for us [taking paths which He prepared ahead of time], that we should walk in them [living the good life which He prearranged and made ready for us to live].” ~ Ephesians 2:10
God knew beforehand what He planned for us, but when we are in our flesh [our self-focused ways], we are not what He planned for us to be. Instead we’re going our own way, becoming what we want to be instead of the loving person He planned for us to be. If we submit to His workmanship, He can carve off the parts that don’t belong. As we submit to his carving cutting process, the loving person He created us to be will emerge.
Have you got some unloving relational habits and self-centered ways that need to be carved off so the real you can emerge? Have you begun the process of letting him expose to you that which needs to go so that you can become who He created you to be?
I want to encourage you to continue submitting yourself to His process, because “I am convinced and sure of this very thing that He Who began a good work in you will continue until the day of Jesus Christ [right up to the time of His return], developing [that good work] and perfecting and bringing it to full completion in you.” ~ Philippians 1:6
If you’ve not yet looked into the Making Heart-Level Connections mini coaching programs, I strongly encourage you to! Those who have participated in the programs so far are saying that it’s been life changing! These colder darker months of increased indoor activity are the perfect time for listening to the coaching program audios, and as we approach the Christmas season, you will be so blessed to make deep heart-level connections with our precious Savior!
~ Barbie Poling