Letting go

Thirty-Seven

Yep, I'm 37 years old...it's a good thing :)

Lately, though, like within the past couple of years, birthdays have been different for me.

Not so party-ish...(although, that's fun too!)

This year it was contemplative.

Letting go of the unhealthy and walking in the new.

For me, letting go isn't easy...

• Letting go of my career as a director of a pregnancy center...

• Letting go of being understood - it's okay you don't need to know :)

• Letting go of the desire to always have a clean house... (a daily struggle)

• Letting go of HGTV and Satellite television.... (harder than it sounds

 Letting go allowed me to see what God has done:

• allowed me to stay home full time which has opened up my ability to paint and create.

• God has brought me to a place of trusting him to defend me, no longer worrying about others.  He will take care of those I love and deal with the ones that are difficult.

• He has grown a pure and simple hunger for His word in me and as a result I am not relying on food - He is my strength.

• I have energy and a renewed hope.

• I have been eating so well and enjoy exercising and jogging again!

And yet.... i am sad because of the bitterness that was revealed, that has taken root.

I didn't even know it was there!

Like, when there's like a little piece of spinach in your teeth...like that.

Just frustration over life stuff, you know, the stuff that is in the way back of the closet and just sits back there like and an old dusty High School Yearbook.  Stuff that I have NO control over and should let go of.  Yet, I let envy and anger just eat at me.

Then the tears came.

Cleansing.

I want to be so much more than this, what God has created me to be.

I love what Sarah Young writes in Jesus Calling...

"To live in My Presence consistently, you must expose and expel your rebellious tendencies.  When something interferes with your plans or desires , you tend to resent the interference.  Try to become aware of each resentment, however petty it may seem. Don't push those unpleasant feelings down; instead let them come to the surface so you can deal with them.  Ask my Spirit to increase your aware of resentful feelings.   Bring them boldly into the Light of my Presence, so that I can free you from them."

The tears came harder.

"Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good"   (1 Peter 2:1-3)

I want to let go of this junk thats weighing me down.

I'm thankful for where God has taken me and the healing he has brought...and yet, there's still the mourning of what isn't there, of what I have not yet attained.  In my timing.  My agenda.

My, my, my.

Bleh.

Who am I?

 ^"But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.  Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God;  once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy."   (1 Peter 2: 9-10)

It is a daily process of handing it over.


Being proactive in my time with God.

I cannot sit by and be a victim, I must go to Him.

I submit to God's word and prayer gives me strength. His authority in my life.

He has never let me down, He's always been there, always.
I'm grateful for what He has given me and I praise Him.  All good things in my life - my husband,  our family,  friends,  health,  my art - are gifts from God.

More tears...this time happy ones :)

It's all in His strength and not my own.

I'm stepping out now in faith that God will meet me and trusting those He's put in my life for accountability, for counsel, for truth...

And as much another birthday reminds me  of how far I have to go... I am learning that letting go and losing can be a great thing.

Just ask my scale. :)