The thing about pain.
Posted by appolus on November 15, 2020
Sanctification. We could spend years speaking on the subject. The shaping of a man or a woman. Imagine a glacier cutting its way through solid granite. In its wake, mountains and valleys and paths for mighty rivers to flow.It moves at its own pace. There is no force in all the world that could stop its inexorable forward progress. It will meet the sea when it meets the sea. And when it is spent, there is a whole world created in its unstoppable often violent wake.
The thing about pain. When you hide a darkness in the deepest recesses of your heart it defies the depths and it shapes every part of who you are. You think that you have compartmentalized it, yet even the deepest chambers of our heart has fissures. No matter how tight the cell door, no matter that it lies at the center of your soul, the darkness bleeds out. It bleeds into every part of who you are.
Then suddenly the light. An impenetrable light that penetrates every part of who we are. All at once? The light of God marches towards the center of your soul. It takes captive every darkness as it makes its inexorable way to the very core of who you are. The light will not co-exist with the darkness. Sanctification will have its way. To the saint of God it is unstoppable as a jealous God takes every part of who you are and shapes you by immense forces beyond your capability of understanding.
I am 17. My wife has almost bled to death in the process of giving birth to our first born son. The cord was wrapped around his neck and she was hemorrhaging. An emergency cesarean section was carried out and our son was born. He was immediately moved to the intensive care unit and there he lay, attached to a machine that breathed for him and who knows what else. And there I sat beside him alone. A heart already darkened by a dark childhood. I will not let this child touch me.
The doctors recommended that he be taken of the life support machine. Two months premature and several minutes without oxygen, they said. The plugs were pulled. Two days he stayed alive. The nurse says “would you like to hold him?” I heard myself saying no. He was dying and I was dead and the gross darkness poured into a ship that had already overturned in violent seas. Stephen died. On the day of his burial they placed a small white coffin on my knee as I sat in the back of the hearse. I felt nothing until the hearse took a corner too fast and I felt Stephen’s body move within the coffin and a gaping hole was violently torn into the very depths of who I was. I would spend many many years plugging that hole.
Ten years later I got dramatically saved. All the years and overlays of the results of my sin were slowly but surely being removed. With every inch, the glacier was slowly reshaping me. Breaking down everything that stood it its path. The force of this change was unstoppable. And very suddenly after many years, the inner chamber was breached. I did not see it coming, I was not even aware of its existence. Yet one moment in a shower, singing praises to God was suddenly and violently replaced with cries from the very depths of my heart. This man, always in control, was not in control. I fought to control the sobs and the racking of my body.
I put my hands over my mouth but could not contain the pitiful noises that were coming from this ancient chamber, locked away for so very long. My poor wife heard me and rushed into the bathroom in time to see me clinging onto the tiled walls. I can still see that look on her face. Total confusion. More than that, she was terrified at what she was looking at. I could not articulate what was going on. Darkness and shame and guilt and pain and sorrow were pouring out of me and there was nothing to be done until it had emptied itself. And just as suddenly as it had begun, it was gone, leaving me physically and mentally exhausted. Yet, I felt so much lighter. A profound change had occurred. It was 15 years in the making but it was now God who was doing the making and He leaves no stone unturned.
The thing about pain, it leaves an indelible mark upon our soul. The thing about change, it uncovers every indelible mark. Sanctification, the process of being set apart and becoming more and more like our Lord means there is no hiding place. There is no chamber that does not belong to Him. Buy an old house and everything left in the attic and the basement belongs to you. We have been bought with a price, everything belongs to the Lord. He is Lord of all, every part of who we are. He is always in the process of changing and renewing and remaking. What could resist a glacier? Who can resist the Lord? The Potter and the wheel and the clay.
A Call To The Remnant 
Lynn Saunders said
❤ beautiful ❤
On Sun, Nov 15, 2020, 9:48 AM A Call To The Remnant wrote:
> appolus posted: “Sanctification. We could spend years speaking on the > subject. The shaping of a man or a woman. Imagine a glacier cutting its way > through solid granite. In its wake, mountains and valleys and paths for > mighty rivers to flow.It moves at its own pace. There ” >
appolus said
Thank you sister…………..bro Frank
Fellowship of St. Peter said
Profound and moving.
appolus said
Thank you brother………..bro Frank
appolus said
Thank you bro……………bro Frank
appolus said
Thank you bro……………bro Frank
Prayergate said
Bro. Frank,
Thank you for sharing such a deeply intimate portion of your soul with us!
Tim
appolus said
Thank you brother Tim, I thought twice about sharing this 🙂 ………bro Frank
appolus said
Thank you bro Tim…….bro Frank
Anonymous said
I agree with brother Tim !!!!
Ps 62:8
Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us
Ps 139:23-24
Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:
And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting
wicked = idol, pain or sorrow
Thank you again our dear brother for putting yourself out there! It helps to see the faithfulness of our Father when we ourselves are hurting so deeply !
2 Cor 1:3-7
3 Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort;
4 Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.
5 For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ.
6 And whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer: or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation.
7 And our hope of you is stedfast, knowing, that as ye are partakers of the sufferings, so shall ye be also of the consolation.
May we endure all things for the elect’s sake which is Christ’s body.
appolus said
Amen………………bro Frank
Kimberly Mcbride said
Thank you so much our dear brother
2 Cor 1:3-6
3 Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort;
4 Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.
5 For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ.
6 And whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer: or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation.
KJV
appolus said
Thank you sister………bro Frank
Fallon said
Ohh, I really loved this. It’s something He has been showing me as He asks me to lay down things that seem so trivial.. yet here it is once again.. it’s all just chambers filled with things that take up space that belongs to Him. How trivial they seem matters not.
On another note, I’m reading your book about the separation of the Remnant. Oh how it’s ministering to me! God could not have led me to a more precise book regarding the things that He has been speaking to me this year. It’s been very encouraging to me and I just wanted to thank you for writing it brother Frank!
appolus said
I am very glad that the book is ministering to you sister. I pray that it ministers to all on the narrow path……..bro Frank
appolus said
I am very glad that the book is ministering to you sister. I pray that it ministers to all on the narrow path……..bro Frank
Linda Townsend said
Very very precious….when reading this to my husband we were both weeping.
Thank you Frank I love your honesty …..and the truths that you share go right into our hearts, we are so blessed to have such a brother as you in the Lord who truly encourages the saints…..Linda and Ian
appolus said
Thank you Linda and Ian for those lovely words of encouragement God bless you guys, my brother and my sister in the Lord…………..bro Frank
Allan Halton said
Very moving, Frank, thanks for this, difficult as it was for you to share it.
You wrote, “I did not see it coming, I was not even aware of its existence.”
Psalm 139 came to mind as I read that. “O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me…” I’ve often read this psalm wondering about it, till one day I realized that all this searching and knowing that God is intent on… it is a revelation of the depths of intimacy He desires with us. “Thou desirest truth in the inward parts…” (Ps. 51). He will not settle for less than the whole of us. How comforting to know this– that He knows us through and through, even the hidden recesses we ourselves are not aware of, and will not rest content till He has brought all to light, and filled all the darkness with healing light, and we ourselves know even as He knows.
appolus said
Two of my favorite psalms quoted there brother. He knows us better than we know ourselves. We are safe in the Masters hand………………….bro Frank