“Letting God”
A phrase to which so many of us know, but not so many go threw the pain to walk it out.
When you think of the “letting go process” what comes into you head first?
It started with me when over the summer god asked me this phrase,
“you love your family, but do you love me more, you love you comfort place,
but will you follow me into the depths of darkness too know me more?”
As you can imagine, those few words hit me so hard.
Had I really come to a place where I was comfortable, or even a place to where I was ok with my relationship with God, even though it wasn’t growing?
When God asked me to go on the world race this summer in 2014 for the year of 2015, I didn’t know how much my life would be turned up side down.
First the emotions of getting three jobs to even get 3,500 dollars in my account!
Than the emotions of telling my family, “Hey your only daughter and sister is taking off around the world to go preach the gospel in the darkest, scariest of places.”
Yep, you can only imagine what happened after that statement, lets just say they were not really on board at first.
But nothing would prepare me for what would come next, and yes I am sure you know what I am talking about.
The part of grieving my comfort of home, and the family I was so close too.
When I came home from training camp in Atlanta during October, that week felt like forever!
Not because I was not excited about all the amazing people I met, or my team that was put together for the trip, but because so much hidden junk came up.
Junk of a broken marriage between my parents, broken relationships between my family, brokenness of relationships that I shouldn’t have been in, brokenness of me trying to cover all my pain, and be the strong one that can handle anything that came her way.
But at the end of that week I realized something, I had not properly grieved anything!
I thought, “ok I cried over this once, that’s good enough right”?
Wrong, that’s only the beginning!
During training camp God was surfacing so much hidden junk I tried to pretend wasn’t there,
and as you can imagine I couldn’t pretend anymore.
Little did I know that was only the start of what he was doing with my process.
When I got home God asked me to start the process of grieving my family, and I have had to take that word and hide it close in my heart.
The reason being is because when we are back home its so easy to get back in to the same routine, the same rhythm, but also the same ways of handling pain.
I tend to push it down, and pretend its not there anymore, and find other ways to get my mind off of what is making me hurt.
See these last few weeks I have learned something that we all need to learn,
in order to move on, to grow, to become that person God wants us to be, we MUST GO THROUGH THE PAIN!!!!!
I know, “Sareece, what the heck are you talking about, God doesn’t want to cause anymore pain than what were already going threw.”
And you right, but the truth also comes down to is that our God is a God who never wants to leave us where we are, he never wanted to cause certain pain that we brought on our self’s, but in order to move on we must commit our self to walking out the pain just as Jesus walked it out for us all those years ago on the cross.
We make mistakes, we fail on a daily bases, we get selfish, we hate pain, and we make bad choices, but that also causes us to lean on God more, he needs us to walk threw the pain of grieving, and the pain of brokenness.
Each day I have been walking threw junk, and guys its nasty, hurtful, SCARY STUFF!
Yes that’s right I said “SCARY”, my junk, my brokenness is scary because I don’t know how much pain I have to keep walking threw in order to get well.
But I can promise you all something that God promised me when I got saved those five years ago, he will never leave our sides.
God, our father, his love and grace is so beautiful and so intense that we cant even begin to imagine, but what I can imagine is just as I was on his heart all those years ago on that cross, I am still on his heart all these years later.
Through all my nastiness and junk of wrong choices, he never has left me, and he never will!
So where is this going, I thought it was “The letting go Process”
Well guys what I am learning is that everyday is our letting go process!
To let go of this earth, of our wants and needs and learn how to lay down our lives everyday to choose “YES” to God!
To let go of control, to let go of family, to let go of anger, confusion, fear, hurt, brokenness, but it starts with our full surrender of always saying YES to Jesus, through our mistakes, through our brokenness, through us not knowing, is a CONSTANT letting go!
And in this beautiful mess we find ourselves, and the person God has called us to be by name!
Its hard and not easy, scary, and fearful, but its also a relationship.
Any form of relationship is not a walk in the park, love flowing constantly, with joy and happiness all the time.
Those are things we have to fight for everyday, we have to fight for those beautiful moments in relationships, just as we have to fight for our relationship with God.
Its a constant YES, and a constant laying down our wills for the will of our father,
but what I can promise you, if you lift up your life, You will never be the same!
God he is our everything, he is our strength when our flesh, and strength fail, he is our light we are taken into this darkness.
And at the end of the day when all relationships, when all our lovers fade away, God and his sted fast LOVE NEVER WILL!
He is never going to leave!
So grab a box of tissue, or jump up and down, or scream or laugh, it doesn’t matter as long as you say “YES” to God and “Yes” to his process, you will never be let down.
Say “YES” God I will go threw the grieving, the joy, the ups and downs of this year on the world race, but the most important thing God, I will always go threw the process because I know you are waiting at my finish line, cheering me on no matter what.
This is me saying “YES” you are my everything, “yes” you have my life and my actions , “yes” to letting the things of this world go if its not of you, and “YES” to waiting and being ok with it just being me and you.
I don’t know what this year of my life will look like, but one thing I do know, is that Jesus you will be with me, and it doesn’t matter what you ask me to give up, no matter how hard or how scary, I will do it, because you will always do it for me!
You haven’t let me down yet, even though I let you down, so this is the start of me saying yes to your process.
