YOU LOVE ME – PART II

After the breaking point I mentioned in my last blog, “You Love Me Pt.1”, I thought the hardest part was over. I had surrendered. I had cried the tears. I had whispered the prayer:  “You’re allowing this because You love me.” And that was real.

But what I didn’t expect was what came next. The quiet. Not the silence of abandonment, but the quiet of rebuilding. Because Hebrews 12 doesn’t just talk about discipline. It talks about training. “God is training you as His own children.” Hebrews 12:7 (NLT)

Training is different from punishment.  Training is intentional. Repetitive. Formative. And refinement is rarely loud. It doesn’t feel like fire falling from heaven. It feels like a series of small, daily decisions. Like, choosing humility when you could defend yourself. Choosing patience when you could react. Choosing honesty without excuse.  Choosing obedience when no one is watching. That’s where love deepens.

In You Love Me Part I, God confronted my behavior. In this season, He started reshaping my foundations. I began to see how much of my identity had been tied to performance, to being capable, to being strong, or to being the one who holds it all together. But God’s love is not impressed with our performance; it’s interested in our formation.

Jesus says in John 15 that the Father prunes the branches that bear fruit so they will bear more fruit. That detail changes everything. Pruning isn’t a sign you failed. It’s a sign you’re growing. 

Refinement, though, exposes areas that had been hiding in plain sight:

• Subtle pride disguised as leadership. 
• Control masked as responsibility.  
• Fear dressed up as discernment. 

And here’s what I learned: when God exposes something, He never does it to shame us. Conviction leads to repentance. Shame leads to hiding. And Scripture is clear: “There is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.” Romans 8:1 (NLT)

While conviction restores relationships, condemnation attacks identity. So I have to embrace the truth that God was not rejecting me. He was restoring me. And the fruit of refinement began to show up quietly. I started to react more slowly.  I listened longer.  I apologized without adding an explanation.  I stopped trying to manage outcomes. Not perfectly. But consistently. And steadiness started replacing striving.

That’s the part we don’t talk about enough: refinement produces stability. A life less reactive. A heart less defensive. A soul less anxious about proving something. Discipline corrected my steps.  Refinement restored my confidence in who I am in Christ. I am not loved because I perform well. I am not secure because I avoid mistakes.  I am not accepted because I manage appearances. 

I am loved because I belong.

Hebrews 12 says discipline yields “a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” (v.11 NLT)

Peace. That’s what surprised me the most. Not hype. Not applause. Not a dramatic transformation. But peace.

A groundedness that says: I don’t have to rush. I don’t have to defend. I don’t have to control. I am being formed, and that formation is love, from a loving Father.

So if you’re in the quiet season,  the one where God isn’t breaking you but shaping you, don’t misinterpret it as distance. He’s near. He’s pruning.  He’s training.  He’s tuning. And when He refines you, it’s never to diminish you.

It’s to restore you into the steady, whole, deeply rooted person you were always meant to become. That, too, is love.

And that love is worth trusting.

Let’s tune in.