Learning To Let Go

When my heart is heavy, sometimes the last thing I want to do is talk – but it’s exactly what I need to do… I need to talk to God. It’s amazing how much better I can feel when I have “talked it out” with Him. If I could draw a timeline of my life in the last year and half you would see just how challenging it has been. My confession? While I knew God would take my burden, it took my flesh a LOT longer to catch up with that notion and the lesson I would learn for it. For the longest time I carried the burden of what others were going through, situations in my marriage or as a mom to Kait, the stress of work, and a million other burdens. They would weigh me down so much I would begin to harbor a horrible attitude. I was always angry with a short fuse to even worse anger. Physically, I would feel like a steam locomotive who needed to let the steam out. It was awful. Then little-by-little Holy Spirit began to nibble at my heart. Sort of like a little fish nibbling on a big piece of french bread… you get the point of how long this took. I wasn’t happy. No one could make me happy.

Over time, here is what God began doing:

1. He would speak to me through people… a word here or there. He would send someone with encouragement for me. I was so filled with anger and resentment I didn’t hear it. 

2. He would speak to me in my dreams. I can’t ignore dreams and God knows that. 

3. He would begin to plant a specific scripture in my head. Randomly something would come to my mind and out of curiosity, I went searching to see what it said. Again, God knows how I tick and He knew I would go searching.

   (This is a bi-product of us spending time with God, as in a relationship, the more time you spend with each other the more you discover about each other. Granted, God knows us because He created us, but He has the opportunity to love on us, intrigue us, surprise us, and bless us in the ways we like those things the more time we spend with Him!)

4. All-of-a-sudden, it all came together into a big picture. I finally understood what God was trying to say to me. I just had to get myself out-of-the-way.

I love to see the clues and try to figure out what God is saying to me. AND HE KNOWS THAT! So He speaks to me that way. 🙂

Eventually I began to get the hint. He was telling me to let go. What I discovered about myself in this process was I had a control issue. I wanted to control it all – and I couldn’t. Gosh this was so hard for me to learn. There are still moments where I swell up wanting to control a situation because I feel I could handle it better – or do better in some fashion – and I always here Holy Spirit whispering to me… “it’s not your battle“.

It’s not my battle. It’s not your battle. It’s not our place to carry other’s burdens and battle it out for them in the earthly realm but we can battle it out in our prayer closets. That’s where I fight mine now. I’ve been battling in the closet for a few months now. When I say closet – I literally mean closet – thanks to the movie War Room. Moving to a small isolated area made a world of difference for me. I want my prayers baked into those walls!