The Lord changed me

25"Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. 26"Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27"I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.…

Ezekiel 36:25-27

Through an experience that happened this week I was reminded of something that I rarely think about anymore. I was reminded of the old me. The one that used to live but seems to have vanished. That me controlled a lot of things, or thought she did. That me got angry and said things without thought. That me failed to consider others feelings as she said those things. She spoke the truth in any situation and operated on a 'sometimes the truth hurts' philosophy. That me...disappeared.

One day she was there and the next she wasn't. I didn't see it at the time. It took months before I realized that that me had gone somewhere and didn't seem to be coming back. It took that long for me to see it because the new me was too busy marveling at the things the Lord had revealed and done in my life for me to notice the absence of the old me.

This week as events in my life reminded me of the old me, as I remembered how I once would have acted and reacted, I found myself thinking of the old me and once again wondering if she's completely gone. It seems that she is. My actions and reactions have shown that time and again and yet sometimes I wonder if she'll resurface sometime when I least expect it.

As I thought of the old me, as those things happening in my life reminded me of what I used to be, I was also vividly aware of a place...a feeling...inside me that wasn't in me when that old me lived. There was a calmness, a mellowness, a lack of anger and the need to put people in their place that would have been there in the old me.

It was an amazing reminder of what happens when the Lord saves us, a reminder of what He did in my life. He took the old me and changed me into the me that I am now. So much of the changes He has created in me have happened over years and came about slowly but that change...that very big change...was sudden. It happened in what seems like a moment. One minute I was me, the next...I was a new me.

I didn't go looking for that change and I sure wouldn't have wanted to make that change. I was a shy child. I was the one that never stuck up for herself. Over the years I somehow learned to stand up for myself, to speak up, to face whatever came my way with my chin up and to say and do what needed doing no matter if it hurt someone else. It was...I believed at the time...what I had to do. I learned to hold my own in a world that was often unkind. And I was proud of what I learned.

Until the day it was gone...or until I realized it was gone...and then I didn't think so highly of what I used to be.

Just the other day I told someone they have no idea what I'm capable of. Only...I don't think I'm capable of that anymore. And that's a good thing. I like the me that I am now way more than I ever liked the old me.