What Doesn't Kill you Only Makes you Stronger...

Sometimes Lord, I don't know if you are trying to make me better or kill me...it gets so hard to distinguish between the pain that cripples and the pain that heals. Sometimes I wonder which one actually hurts worse. The cuts that people and that life give don't seem to bleed near as bad and cause as much pain as the pain You cause when I need to be cut away on. But there is a difference I cannot explain when I feel and know that it is Your hands working as a skilled surgeon on my heart. There is a difference in the pain. It is a knowing in the end that all things are working together for my good that strangely helps me to be able to say that it hurts but please don't stop. Not yet. There are still dead things there that without You will never live again. You bring me to the brink of death to revive my black heart back to life. My very breath turns to ice at times because sometimes my heart is so sick and cold and swollen with all of me that I can fit in it and none of You, that the pain You bring is the only thing that can heal. The only thing that gets my attention. The only thing that brings me to my knees. Pain is sometimes the only thing that can open the eyes of my heart. If I can and will endure the knife, Your knife, then I can and will endure anything. You are causing much pain right this very moment but Lord, I will not resist Your hand. I will allow You to cut away and if it causes pain and death to bring newness of life, then so be it. Until You know You have all of me, You will never cease to drop me to my knees. So, if I find myself there for the next little while like I know I will, I will know that something is dying and something is beginning to live...I know that to die is to live, and to lay it all down is to lose all while gaining everything in You, but Lord, this hurts so much, and Your little girl is struggling, so I may need Your help to lay some final things to rest. I know You will not rest till You are my one desire, my one focus, my only love, till You and You alone sit on the throne of my life, till every dream, every desire, every idol has fallen at Your feet. You will not rest until You know my heart truly means the words that my lips have said so many times before. I love You more than the very air I breath, and I want more than anything to give You what You are asking of me. I need You to cut away and make all things new but please hold my hand through it all so I don't fall and hold on tight so when I am tempted to run, I will know I can't get away. I want to want this more than anything I have ever wanted. Help me to want You more than anything else I have ever wanted. Keep causing me the pain that heals. What doesn't kill me Lord I know will only make me stronger...make me stronger in You, Daddy...I love You so very much and I know that I owe You my life for all You have done for me...You are my song and I will sing of You forever...