It is so easy to be consumed by this world we live in. It is so easy to make to do lists and hurry around the house or the mall or the office just trying to get things done. It is so easy for me to believe that I am the one that holds the key to my happiness. I am the one in the drivers seat that makes things happen (both good and bad) and that I am the one who at the end of the day deserves a good pat on the back.
Confession: I used to believe that. For a good 5 years I believed that. I had moments of glory and moments of failure and most of it I contributed to myself. I landed the job, I traveled to far away places, I lost the weight blah blah blah. I bought a car, I bought a house, I blah blah blah. You get the idea. I knew, I knew that it wasn't about me or what I could do but I had gotten so far gone that it seemed impossible to go back. So I continued to believe lies and feel guilty about it later.
Then this past summer it all stopped. I was tired. I needed to not be the one in the proverbial drivers seat anymore and not the one with all the to do lists. I needed someone else to help carry the burden of this thing we call "life" but I felt sort of hopeless.
Then Help came. I was no longer alone and no longer in charge and it felt wonderful. I felt the burden literally lifted off of me, taken away and discarded.
This is how it happened. A long story squeezed into a short version looks like this: I was sitting in church during worship with my heart of stone and I started telling the Lord everything that I was thinking and feeling. I told Him that I felt like I was alone. That I was empty. That I was selfish and fearful. That I didn't know if He would give me a second chance or if everything could go back to the way it was before. I reminded him of our days of old, of prayers and quiet times and Him sending me to far away places for His glory and not my own. And then I stopped. And I asked him to give me a picture. I told him I was believing in faith that He could do that and I needed a picture of my future. Of the right now. To remind me that I am (despite my grand failures) a child of God and forever bound to Him.
The picture He gave me was so real and so true. The only way I can describe it is to ask you to imagine what it looks like when a woman cries and mascara runs down her face. Except it wasn't just my face. It was all of me. It was absolutely beautiful and I am so very thankful that God used that image to speak to me in a way that only I and Him could share. For the next 4-5 months every single time I gathered with a community of believers to worship that picture stayed in the front of my mind. I knew that He was presently at work in my heart and in my life so that all things could become new.
Disclaimer: every single day I mess up. I forget and I try to get in the driver's seat. I get mad when things do not go the way I would hope and I struggle to take a step back, hand God the key's and say " wherever you go, I go too." I love this life though. Life is SO much more exciting when it is placed in God's hands and when you get to enjoy it instead of just trying to manage it. I hope that I can do more enjoying and less managing every single day.
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