Tag Archives: release

Letting Go

Letting Go 

     Just let go and let God. Let go and trust God. Who hasn’t heard some variation of those directives. And who hasn’t thought to themselves or even said out loud, “But what if …?” There’s nothing easy about letting go of things we’ve held tightly to. Starting a statement with ‘just’ gives the sense of this action being easy. Just walk away. Just stand up. Just close your eyes. These directives are easy, or so they seem.

     In my current situation, I’m learning more and more what it truly looks like to ‘let go.’ In April of this year, my husband and I came to the mutual decision that it is time to move again. This came after many conversations and prayer. The recurring thoughts of selling our current house and what the next stage of our lives would be, led us to believe it’s that time … again. The longest he and I have lived anywhere is five years. The home we lived in at that time was a double-wide we had set on four acres we purchased from my parents. This property was next to where I grew up. So familiar. So beautiful. So much ‘home’ to me. I even declared as our double-wide halves were being driven onto the property, “I’m finally home.” At the time I had no understanding about Heaven being my true home. I knew God, however, not in an intimate way.

     After living in the double-wide for five years, God revealed it was time to move on into what he had for us next. Here we are about twenty years later, in a similar position. Only this time, we aren’t as certain as to what’s next for us in the way of living arrangements. When we moved from that beautiful homey location near my parents, we knew we were buying a house about thirty minutes away from that location. At this juncture, we know few things.

  1. We are to live simply and simply live. All but necessities are to be let go of.
  2. God won’t let us know what’s next until we leave what’s right now. 
  3. Our home for the summer is our new camper which will be settled nicely on a seasonal lot in the town we know we are being drawn to.
  4. Listed last, however, it was the first thing we knew for sure. Abba is drawing my husband and I back to the town I grew up in. The town our double-wide was in.

     The process of moving, this time, has been very different. Each time we’ve moved until now, we would downsize and ‘let go’ of things, however, this time is so much different because of only keeping necessities. As we cleaned and prepped the house to sell, I began to ask myself and God, “What do I truly need?” There were several items I didn’t need to ask, God whispered sweetly in my ear, “Let it go.” My third time sorting through my closet, Abba gently guided me in seeing, “it’s time to let someone else enjoy that.” This was the message with several of my favorite clothing items.

     Probably the most difficult part of letting go of so many things was the time I spent going through the pictures, clothes, and belongings of my loved ones who’ve passed away. Moving through the process led me into another layer of grieving. I went through almost forty-eight hours of feeling immensely heavy-hearted. I asked Abba what was going on with me because I felt so weighed down I couldn’t even bring myself to fake a smile. He said, in his most loving way, “You are grieving many things.” This made complete sense to me. Quickly I recalled all the pictures and such I had looked through. The items I threw away and gave away and the little bit I placed into a tote to store. The memories. The emotions that went along with all those things. Not to mention the reality of grieving a complete lifestyle change. I am walking through another layer and a new layer of mourning that I’ve not experienced before.  

     “Oh Father, thank you for helping me to see this. Now I have some idea of how to proceed. Grieving, I’m well versed in grieving. My mom passed away nearly twenty-one years ago. We are almost to the eleventh anniversary of our son’s passing. I find God’s timing to be beyond words. Our first camper payment is due July fourth, the date our son was taken from us through a motorcycle accident. Our moving date is July eleventh, the date we said our goodbyes to Tad through his funeral. No coincidence, God-incidence. My dad and in-laws have also passed. I’m no stranger to mourning. It’s hard stuff!

     Next Father shared with me that he’s preparing me for my journey ahead. It’s so beautiful to me how God cares for me. He takes time to prepare me for the big things in life. The love of God, I just cannot grasp.

Letting go. 

Letting go of my expectations.

Letting go of the ‘things’ I’ve found my security in, outside of God.

Letting go of the stuff I held onto because it belonged to someone special to me.

Letting go of fears.

Letting go of my need for control of the present and the future.

Letting go. 

For more on my journey and how coaching can guide you on yours, contact me at soulcarecoach.amy@gmail.com.

For more on Prepare-Journey-Debrief-Repeat. And journal along the way. Order my book Wilderness Journey Living Journal: Taking Steps Toward God by emailing me at soulcarecoach.amy@gmail.com

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BECOMING A DEEP REAL AUTHENTIC WOMAN OF GOD Part 8

     [From Part 7] Dig Deep, Release the Past and the People in it, and develop A NEW PERSPECTIVE.

Isaiah 43:16, 18-19 “This is what the Lord says—

    he who made a way through the sea,

    a path through the mighty waters,

“Forget the former things;

    do not dwell on the past.

 See, I am doing a new thing!

    Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

I am making a way in the wilderness

    and streams in the wasteland.”

     Developing a new perspective can be easy to say and hard to do. It takes time, effort, repetition and persistence. 

Jeremiah 29:11-14 (NIV)  “ For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.  You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.  I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity.  I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.””

     God declares that He knows His plans for us. He plans that we have a hope and a future.  I believe the hope our Abba Father has for us; in part, breaks through and frees us when we see how the things we tell ourselves truly impact how we think about ourselves, others, and the events in our lives.  

     In his book ‘A Better Way to Think: Using Positive Thoughts to Change Your Life,’ H. Norman Wright talks about the effects extreme stress and worry have on our brains and how words we tell ourselves repeatedly can actually short-circuit those effects.  For instance, when we are worried we can repeat over and over “Praise God” or “Purple Fish” or “I can do this;”  any affirmations will work.  Wright also suggests “Don’t spend so much time thinking. Begin experiencing the world without the running commentary in your mind. Don’t take your thoughts as the gospel truth. Think of them like the clouds, drifting across the sky. At times they’re there, and then they’re gone. They have no permanence. Look at each day as a new day, disconnected from the past and future, so you can experience what God has in store for you. Pay attention to your thought life. Are your thoughts drifting, or are you choosing to focus them? Remember, you’re in charge—of your thoughts and actions. Accept the way things are right now, and look for the positive in this moment, rather than assuming positive things are only possible in the future. If your thinking begins moving toward depression, interrupt your thinking process.” 

     We can interrupt our thinking by choosing to WORSHIP AND PRAISE GOD. 

Instead of worrying … worship and praise God. 

Instead of focusing on our fears … worship and praise God. Instead of living in regret of the past … worship and praise God. He is good. He is faithful. He sees us as we truly are, a daughter of the King, that makes us HIS Princess! 

     For times when we struggle to find the words to worship and praise God, His Word gives us what we need. 

Psalm 30:4-5 (NIV)  “Sing the praises of the Lord, you his faithful people; praise his holy name.  For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning”.

John 10:27-29 (NIV)  “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.  I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand.  My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.”

Romans 8:38-39 (NIV)  “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,  neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Psalm 37:4 (NIV)  “Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”

     The enemy works very hard to erect barriers in our lives to keep us from connecting fully with God and each other.  He will try to keep us stewing in our fears that have been ingrained in us through our past experiences and lead us to seeing our lives and priorities through a distorted perspective.

Let’s break through these barriers and draw closer to God and each other. 

Let’s ASK GOD FOR STRENGTH TO DIG DEEP AS WE SEEK TO RELEASE THE PAST (AND THOSE IN IT) AND KNOCK ON THE DOOR TO A NEW PERSPECTIVE.   LET’S REJOICE IN WORSHIP & PRAISE TO THE LORD; FOR HE IS FAITHFUL.

#BreakingBarriers#Reconnection

Contact me at soulcarecoach.amy@gmail.com to discuss breaking down barriers or to place an order for my book “Wilderness Journey Living journal”. It’s a guided journal for women that leads you through eight weeks of Taking Steps Toward God through a variety of journaling styles.

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BECOMING A DEEP REAL AUTHENTIC WOMAN OF GOD Part 7

     [From Part 6] The extremes of counting only on God (my interpretation of his leading) or the other end of the spectrum, seeking others for leading, cuts out the balance of seeking God, seeking wise counsel, and then seeking God for further direction. This plan keeps a healthy balance in our relationship with God and others. It breaks down barriers.

     Focusing on the barriers of fear, our past, our perspective, our priorities, and isolation can keep us imprisoned by them. They can seem so heavy and can lead us to feel totally defeated.  Let’s not stay here in this prison cell, let’s break free and break through to the freedom and the relationships God has created us for.  Through preparing for this material, I realized these barriers deal with how we internally process and view the things we experience. The antithesis of this requires a relationship with God.   

     To help us to remember some ways we can break through the barriers and connect with God and others, I have used the acronym D R A W.

     DIG DEEP. Ask God in prayer to help you to pull back the curtain today and every day, so you can see where the devil is lurking and working.  While we will experience fear in our lives, we don’t have to agree with the messages it sends. We don’t have to wallow in it. We don’t have to choose it. And we definitely don’t have to make friends with it. 

     In ‘Fearless-Imagine Your Life Without Fear, Max Lucado states, “Christ-followers contract malaria, bury children & battle addictions & as a result, face fears. It’s not the absence of storms that sets us apart. It’s whom we discover in the storm; an unstirred Christ.”  Whatever we water, grows.  If we water fear, it will grow. If we water our faith, it will grow.  When our faith grows, our fears are depleted of what makes them grow.

 Matthew 7:7-12 (NIV)

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

 “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?  Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?  If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!  So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”

     Earlier I shared with you that I have lived most of my life fearful of many things.  That changed for me several years ago when I was away at one of my ministerial classes and the Holy Spirit stopped me dead in my tracks. I was on a walk and he told me ‘not another step … until you are ready to get out of the boat, and you are not able to return.’  The boat I had to get out of was the boat of Avoidance. Avoidance of fears and hiding from those things that scared me.  It took a few minutes to muster up the courage to take that literal step out of the boat.  It’s not always been easy to stay out of the boat, because stepping out of it meant diving into the waters of the unknown. The chaos, the monsters of the past, and the storms.  I’m so thankful for my Jesus who calms storms and who has already defeated Satan. This truth has given me the strength and courage to keep going.

     What holds us in our fears? We have history with our past.  We have lived years and years with these things we have stored up in our minds like a treasure chest full of things we value.  It’s time to RELEASE THE PAST AND THE PEOPLE IN IT.

Acts 16:26 (NIV)  “Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everyone’s chains came loose.”

Galatians 5:1 (NIV) “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”

     How do we release the past and the people in it?  There is not a quick ‘fix’ or an easy answer to this question, however, there are some ways we can break through and experience freedom.  

I have realized, with help from Christian counselors, that I don’t have to agree with harsh or mean words spoken to me. 

I can tell myself the truth spoken about me from Scripture.

I can make an intentional decision to forgive those who’ve hurt me in the past, whether it was intentional or accidental. 

     Forgiveness is a process.  It takes months of daily choosing to forgive an offense until it no longer stirs emotion to think about it.  

There are three types of forgiveness.  

  1.  Exoneration.  This is a complete forgiveness.  A reconciliation is possible here.  I have exonerated the guy that caused the accident that took my son’s life.
  2. Forbearance.  Forgiveness is granted but the offense is not forgotten as a safety measure.  I have forgiven family members for ways they hurt me, however I remember them so I don’t get hurt again in the same way.
  3. Release.  This is releasing the person who hurt us and over time being able to pray for them.  This doesn’t mean the offense is/was okay, it just means we are taking them off our hook and leaving judgement for God, the only just judge. I have forgiven and released my grandfather for the abusive way he treated me. I’m not accepting it was okay for him to treat me that way, I’m releasing him to be dealt with by God. 

     From ‘Fervent’ (Priscilla Shirer) “When galvanized with the living truth of God’s Word, fervent prayer is the bucket that can dip down into the reserves of God’s strength and pull up all the resolve you need for releasing other people from what they owe you.”

     Through the cross of Jesus we have the ability to release the past, recognizing it has shaped who we are today.  We can live in the present with God and give him our future.  When we give God the messes of yesterday, today and tomorrow, he can turn those messes into a message that can change the world, or at least, our corner of it.

     In Part 8 (Finally the last entry) Dig Deep, Release the Past and the People in it, and develop A NEW PERSPECTIVE. You will have to check out my next post to know what comes next.

#BreakingBarriers#Reconnection

Contact me at soulcarecoach.amy@gmail.com to discuss breaking down barriers or to place an order for my book “Wilderness Journey Living journal”. It’s a guided journal for women that leads you through eight weeks of Taking Steps Toward God through a variety of journaling styles.

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