Can't you see me?

I've been having some good conversations recently. All of them have been with people who I consider 'real'. The people who are outright honest and blunt (gotta love those types).
A couple of nights ago it was about how exhausted I am/we are. I left our time together and before bed looked up Chambers 'My Utmost' for the day. I'm so past being surprised by his wise words:

(In talking about having a call on your life)
This call has nothing to do with personal sanctification, but with being made broken bread and poured-out wine. God can never make us wine if we object to the fingers He uses to crush us with. If God would only use His own fingers, and make me broken bread and poured-out wine in a special way! But when He uses someone whom we dislike, or some set of circumstances to which we said we would never submit, and makes those the crushers, we object. We must never choose the scene of our own martyrdom. If ever we are going to be made into wine, we will have to be crushed; you cannot drink grapes. Grapes become wine only when they have been squeezed.
I wonder what kind of finger and thumb God has been using to squeeze you, and you have been like a marble and escaped? You are not ripe yet, and if God had squeezed you, the wine would have been remarkably bitter. To be a sacramental personality means that the elements of the natural life are presenced by God as they are broken providentially in His service. We have to be adjusted into God before we can be broken bread in His hands. Keep right with God and let Him do what He likes, and you will find that He is producing the kind of bread and wine that will benefit His other children.

I laughed and sent my friend the link. She agreed the next day we were being "squeezed"
"Its a good thing when you think about it...
...really"
We tried to pretend we were excited about this revelation.
At lunch another girl and I sat long past the dishes were cleared and people had left.
"I'm tired"
"I'm angry"
"I'm weary"
"I'm fed up"
"I'm ready to go home"
"All this crap from the past is coming up"
"I've never been so frustrated in my life"
(Continue on this path clear through my large cup of tea)

We concluded that it is ok to feel these things. After suppressing emotions or trying to dismiss them it is so good to put it all out there. Its what we do with these emotions that counts. That's what God is waiting to see.
Will we respond the right way?
We also laughed and through smiles agreed that God always uses these crap times to help us grow, to mold us.
:sigh:
After all, he who has been given much, much will be asked of. Right?

Just now I talked again with my Wednesday night friend. We talked about the 'squeezing' and how true it was of our lives. She recalled another analogy of God using other people to grate us against, using them to refine us. Yes, grate like cheese. Then there's the refiners fire. Nice image, fire, melting, being stirred by a big spoon. Fantastic.

No, its not easy to feel crushed, grated, or maybe melted over fire from time to time. I'm tired to be honest. But, I always come around to what God is doing, wondering what He's up to.
Lately Ive been saying,
"I'm waving the white flag, God. Can't you see me? I surrender, I'm tired, I'm ready for this hard stuff to be over"

Its Friday afternoon at 4pm over here in Africa. My headphones are pushed as far as they'll go into my ears, a sign when you live in community that says DO NOT DISTURB. I'm finished with work for the week and I'm desperate to go upstairs, put on sweatpants after a shower, and stay in my room until sometime late tomorrow morning.
While sitting here, reconciling the week with God, getting ready to write a quick blog about waving my white flag and God not letting up, God chuckled (what? I believe it)

Suzanne. Now you are starting to see. When these things come up, when you are at your end, when you are done, surrender. Surrender fully, totally, to me. This is where you are supposed to be. Complete surrender. Of course I see you, you're just where I want you.

What was that I said earlier about God using these times to teach me things?
As the Africans would say, their eyebrows raised,
"Ah-huh"