Threshing Floor

Originally written June 17, 2023

The last week and last couple of months have been absolutely soul crushing on a personal level. I’ve had to deal with things that I could have never conceived of existing much less being brought into fruition in my life or that of anyone I love.

However, what’s also true is that the way my life looks now (in good ways!) and honestly even the way my life looked 5 years ago are also not things I could have ever conceived of, much less dreamt or hoped for.

I remember when I decided to go to grad school—or, more accurately when I felt called and pulled into grad school despite my own intentions that I previously had for my life in that season 🤣. One of my friends told me that it felt like I was running from something. I looked around and said, “have you SEEN my life lately?!” (It was destitute and impoverished in most ways 😂). Like, girl I’d be dumb not to run from this. It’s bitter hell. You bet your ass I’m not staying.

This morning I looked at my phone upon waking and thought, “let’s see what fresh hell awaits me.” Sometimes it’s like that, y’all. There are times we’re all brought to the threshing floor. If you don’t know this metaphor, it is a reference to Matthew 3:12. But, in order to understand it, you need to know less about the Bible and more about farming. The threshing floor is where the wheat is crushed so that the less-useful straw falls away and only leaves the more-useful grain. The most valuable part of the wheat plant is the grain, but Matthew also tells us that not only is the wheat gathered and threshed, but the chaff (what’s left behind, the straw in this case) is burned in unquenchable fire. If that conjures images of hell for y’all it is because this process is painful and the loss of these things, though we may not need them, does feel like fresh hell on this earth.

There are times I’ve talked about “distilling”. That I feel like God is distilling me more potently into the person He wants me to be. Molding me, like a potter, whittling—ok sometimes full on bashing—me, like a sculpture, so I can be shaped into the person it takes to do the work He gave me in this world. Sometimes I talk about it like sifting. Glennon Doyle references the sifting by referring to the word “crisis” because the Greek root of it means to discern or to sift. Crisis makes us sift. Crisis breaks everything down so that we can sift—leave the things we no longer need. Let only the best stuff remain. It’s real-life alchemy.

Threshing floor. Sifting. Distillation process. It’s all towards the same end, but it is a process. Sculpting, shaping, molding in the potter’s hands. These are all things we hear. But, the step we miss is the part where you get crushed, first. I know, I know. So many people don’t find power in their pain. They don’t find healing in the fact that God makes all things new. That He will use any tool to sharpen you and shape you. To sculpt you into exactly who it is He needs you to be. That is not a healing narrative for so many. Not everybody sees purpose in their pain or calling in their crisis. I get it. Sometimes the pain actually is brutalizing. Sometimes the pain is murder, rape, abuse, physical death and loss, bankruptcy, job-loss, divorce, your business going under, loss of a child. Sometimes the pain is just getting a flat tire and sometimes the pain is earth-shattering and catastrophic (and sometimes, depending on who you are and what your situation is, and because of our economic hierarchy, getting a flat-fire is also those things). It feels unjust and scary and incredibly lonely. It feels like God abandoned you or at least cared so little to not protect you. But the truth is, God never leaves you. And over here, our story is one of redemption. This narrative is about creating beauty from pain. If it’s not your narrative, no worries. My work is probably not for you. Because for me—no matter what has happened in my life, and there have been some pretty terrible things. Some of them have destroyed me. But they’ve also healed me. They’ve shaped me into a person who loves Greatly and experiences bliss in small moments and joy in large ones and beauty despite the pain. It’s redemptive excellence. Joy as as an act of revolution, of rebellion in spite of and sometimes even because of the pain.

Maybe I needed to be destroyed. But then, I allow God to sift. Through my shattered, broken, almost nonexistent existence. Mind you—I don’t just need to be broken because I’M broken or because something is inherently wrong with me. It’s not punishment for my wickedness or for my slew of misdeeds. I need to be broken, sometimes shattered, because I need to be re-built to do the work God has called me to do. You aren’t inherently bad just because bad things sometimes happen to you. Maybe they even often happen to you! The wheat stalk is made in perfect and Divine creation. And so are you. But, what has to happen to the wheat so that it can be used? The wheat grain isn’t magically separated from the hay. It’s crushed. Then sifted. The grapes aren’t magically turned into wine (okay except that one time, but we’re not all Jesus, mmkay?). They are crushed. Then sifted from the grape skin and seeds. Then distilled. Some wheat becomes whole wheat-grain, sprouted and served just as-is. Some wheat is processed and becomes bread, pasta, cereal. Some is further processed and distilled to become vodka (it’s that Grey-Goose, baby). Whatever it is you are meant to become, there will be periods of crushing in order to get you there. We often are hasty to accept the blessings. But not so hasty to accept the pain. We all want to be wine, but no one wants to be crushed.

It’s funny every time someone tells me I’m lucky. Or that they’re jealous—for whatever reason—people have actually said that to me and sometimes all I can do is stare. Like…seriously? Especially if they know anything about me, my childhood, my upbringing, or my sheer existence. Haha. Bishop T.D. Jakes says that, “y’all see the wine. But I see the crushing.” If you are in a crushing season, or a threshing season, or a sifting season, or a distilling season. Remember that your latter days will be greater than your former days (which is a paraphrase of Job 8:7). God will never bring you THIS far, to leave you. I could never have even dreamt of the beauty in my life currently. Of the people that I have. Or the work that I’m doing or the joy I am able to experience after the amount of pain in my life has had its influence. And although the threshing and crushing that is happening in my life now is quite literally inconceivable. I am ready and excited to see the fruitfulness of it, later. Ya gotta trust the process, because wine ain’t made overnight (but I for one am ready for whatever phase includes sitting in oak barrels for a very long time and just becoming really good—fermenting and becoming a lil extra spicy. I picture this phase on a beach somewhere with bottomless drinks in my hand. I’ll post pictures of the next season of that phase when it comes. Y’all just look out for ‘em, I’ll hit you with those later 🍹). Trust the process. The repetitive unbecoming and the repetitive and promised and hoped for becoming.