To Save A Life

Sometimes holding on can save your life.  And sometimes holding on can cost you your life.  Fun, right?  Let me explain.

Holding on.  Hanging on to things for dear life in the hopes they won't change, when they inevitably do anyways.  So why hold on, right?  When you know it just makes it worse and until you let it go it won't get any better.  Why hold on?   It's the hope that those things that have inevitably, irreversibly changed will once again go back to the same old same old.  That the old familiar memories will once again come back to life and that life will go back to what it was.

How often has it ever been a good idea for things to stay the same?  To never change?  To be complacent?  Especially in relationship. ESPECIALLY in relationship.  Relationships cannot stay the same.  You cannot reverse time to go back to the way things were.  Things move forward. People more forward.  People change.  God grows you.  He grows me. 

Last night I came to a great revelation in my own life:  let go.   Seems simple, right?  Not for this girl.

I hold so tightly to those things in my life that I don't want to change, all the while making things worse through action or word.  The good intention is there to make it better, but that good intention is about as good as the current stock market.

Guess who I forgot in the ill-fated process of trying to control this piece of my life?  God.  He gets forgotten more than He should.  I suppose I should get to the point of this jotting, though.

So last night I was thinking. I do that a lot.  I was thinking and I was praying and I was trying to relieve this great unsettling in my spirit.  Two words settled in and took root: let go.

I have heard this before, but I knew now specifically what it referred to and the death grip I had on that situation.  The way I was handling it was making things worse instead of better and God was NOT being glorified.  God wasn't even being acknowledged.  So I acknowledged my wrongdoing in this whole mess and gave it to Him.  But He wasn't done.

He didn't just want my heartfelt apology or my well-intentioned promise to try harder.  He wanted EVERYTHING.  I was either all in on what He was doing or I was left to my own devices to make something work that clearly was not.  So I gave up.  Gave in. Gave everything.  Gave it over.  Whoa, did that feeling in my spirit subside?  Yes, it did. 

I came to this:  I am done fighting. I am done holding onto it.  It is costing me my life in Him to hold on to stuff that is becoming idle and an idol in my life.  I have put others before Him for a long time. People are my idol and that idol worship needs to stop.  Why I am relying on people to be what only God can be in my life?

So begins the process of digging out of this heap of rubble and getting back to Him.  Cleaning out the well (I love that..thanks Ann).  Making sure that my relationships are focused ON HIM.  That my thoughts and words are focused ON HIM.  That my emotions are focused ON HIM.  That I am not just going along with something just because it reminds me of stuff that can never be brought back.  My future is HIS.  I am HIS.  And when I deal with the repercussions of what He is calling me to do about it now, I will deal with them in HIS timing and will and not my own.  It is already starting.

So, I let go to save my life.  I release these things to Him to preserve my life.  Besides, His plan and purpose is WAY better than anything I could ever put together. 

Here I go........