Saying goodbye to my preconceived life

My heart beats, standing on the edge

But my feet have finally left the ledge

Like an acrobat

There’s no turning back

I’m letting go

Of the life I planned for me

And my dreams

I’m losing control

Of my destiny

It feels like I’m falling and that’s what it’s like to believe

So I’m letting go

This is a giant leap of faith

Trusting and trying to embrace

The fear of the unknown

Beyond my comfort zone

Giving in to your gravity

Knowing You are holding me

I’m not afraid

Feels like I’m falling and that’s what it’s like to believe

Feels like I’m falling and this is the life for me

-“I’m Letting Go” by Francesca Battistelli

I have always thought I knew how my life would go. Being the OCD control freak I am, I even planned the whole thing out. As the years have come and gone, I just saw that as God pushing those plans back, not changing them or potentially taking them away. I mean, who am I without them? I don’t know any other way or any other life.

Based on my desires and with the example of other strong Christian’s lives around me, I believed there is a formula to how my life will go. If I’m honest with myself, I still do. So, now that my life no longer fits the “plan” and the formula no longer applies, I just feel lost. I spend most of my day dreaming about getting that plan (or at least the part that’s gone) back or fearing that I will never get it at all. I don’t mean to sound like I doubt God has the power to do whatever He chooses; I’m just starting to fear that maybe those plans were never meant to be my life.

Granted, a lot of this is brought on by my dramatic tendencies, stress, and my never-ending exhaustion. But I just feel like I don’t understand so much of what God is doing. Don’t get me wrong, A LOT of it I do. I see why I NEEDED the struggle and how it is changing me. I see how I never would have changed without it. But I just don’t see how some of the distractions from that growth (steps that were clearly placed by God) are in my path. I feel like they keep me from growing, keep me struggling for control.

It is crazy to look up and realize I have come to know myself so well. It is discouraging to see that means I am still prone to destructive tendencies in my life. It’s sad to see how I hurt myself over and over again. I am learning that it is impossible to move on by myself. I just don’t have the will or a way. And either God doesn’t want me to right now (because let’s be honest things aren’t going to happen without is say-so) or I’m broken beyond repair. I’m going to guess it’s the first because why else would God bother (plus He puts us just where He wants us).     

I don’t doubt God’s power or what He is doing here. Everything that happens, He either brings or allows. It’s the “me” part I don’t have much faith in. I feel so caught up in what I want/have/don’t want/don’t have. This growth period isn’t just about God changing who I am, but how I live and how I think. Maybe some of the hold up is that I don’t necessarily want all that change.                        

The lyrics above are not a statement; I cannot honestly say that is how I feel. They are a dream, a prayer. I wish I could let go. I truly believe that if I ever could, I would finally feel free. I don’t feel free right now, I feel trapped in a life I don’t want & certainly didn’t ask for. But to quote Yancey Arrington (I believe I have used this before), “God’s will is not giving you everything you want but everything He wants for you.”

I feel like I need to start finding ways to say goodbye to my preconceived life. God may (and most likely one day will) choose to give me those desires; He probably placed most of them on my heart. But if He does not, I have two options: spend my life mourning what I don’t have or find a way (with God’s help) to accept that they are not mine. That’s a lot of what I have been struggling with lately. Letting go of the life I thought would be mine, the family I thought I would have, and they way I thought things would go. Accepting that I may never get those things back.

I start to feel panic at the thought of not having control. Some of the only way I get by the belief I know how this is going to turn out. But truth is I don’t. Who knows, I might die tomorrow and all of this was for someone else’s growth. We aren’t guaranteed any of it. Just that God is in control and has a purpose to all He does. I want to be encouraged by that and am ashamed that mostly I still just fear. I still don’t know how to accept that what I want, feel, and have aren’t what this life is about. 

Tonight I ask God to prime my heart for the next stage: acceptance. Until I accept what I can’t change, I can’t accept the beauties in what God is changing and where this change is going. Is this where you are? Consider asking God to help you let go.

Habit-Forming Ideas



What do we really want in life? Have any of us ever stopped and asked ourselves that? I always hear people say, “I want to be a better person. I want to have a better life. I want to do/understand God’s will for my life.” I know these statements all too well. I have said them. I still say them. But what are we really asking for? I know I am guilty of coming before God asking for help and then getting right back up and going back to the same place I was to begin with. My actions don’t reflect my words. I ask for change but am unwilling to work toward that change.

Reality is that most times when we ask for change, we just mean, “God make things better, but I’m gonna go back over here to my sin-infested life, let me know when to look for my happy ending.” We aren’t asking God to come into our lives and change us, to do His will; we just want our instant gratification. American’s are obsessed with the idea of instant gratification. We pretty much have instant anything & everything. Fast food, the Starbucks at every corner, credit cards for instant purchases, and even empty relationships forged over facebook reflect the extent we go to to get whatever we want right now. We don’t really have a “work for it” attitude.

How often is this line of thinking the way we treat God? How often I find myself going before Him for the quick save and then go back to my sinful existence. I feel emptiness and say I want change, but really I just mean I want a quick fix. But true change is anything but quick. It’s time consuming and painful. It requires legitimate work.

In order to truly experience a true internal change, it requires an external one as well. We can’t just decide to live a life loving on others if we don’t come before the creator of love. We can’t expect to run from our crutches and temptations if we don’t create a lifestyle that is devoid of them. We can’t live with new hearts and be the exact same as before.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you have to give away all of your possessions and live in a convent. Believe me, I’ve been thinking lately how it’s possible for any of us that don’t choose that. We are all going to have things we enjoy that aren’t particularly holy. We all have things we aren’t willing to give up. I’m not trying to lecture on walking away from life as you know it, I couldn’t and honestly wouldn’t be willing to do so. What I am saying is that removing some distractions or spending some time focusing on God instead of your circumstance is a good starting place.

They say it takes something like 28 days to form a habit. If that’s true, how can you expect to experience a God-led change when you can’t even take the time to spend 28 days with Him? Man, I wish this post had happened a few days from now, on my 28^th post. That would have been cool. ANYWAY J, prayer, scripture reading, a change of focus, and time with other believers who want the same things you do. All of these are good places to start learning to cultivate a life dependant on Christ. I can tell you now, most likely change is not going to happen until you move to a place where that’s how you feel. That you need Christ, that you desire that change more than anything else.

I understand how hard that statement is. I have been struggling for years with creating a balance between my God time and me time and I have to admit the scale was tipped severely low on (toward) the ‘me’ side. God, being the merciful friend He is, stepped in for me and did what I could not. He gave me a glimpse at how lost I can be if I kept going on that way. Believe me, I was perfectly content to continue on the way I was going. I’m still tempted to slip back into that. It was unfulfilling and lonely, but it was also easy.

Don’t get trapped by the lie the easy life tells you. God has shown me that if I don’t realize I need Him, that dependence on Him is the only way to get out of that place, then that’s all there can be for me. And He has promised He has so much more planned for me and for you.

Do you feel empty and want a change? Do you feel like you are getting ready to let Christ change your heart? If so, I urge you to consider some ways you can force an outward change in your life that leads you before Christ. See if it puts you one step closer to being dependant on Him today.



Loosening my grip

“It’s the way people try not to change that’s unnatural. The way we cling to what things were instead of letting them be what they are. The way we cling to old memories instead of making new ones. The way we insist on believing that anything in this life is permanent. Change is constant. How we experience that change, that’s up to us. It can feel like death or a second chance at life. If we open our fingers, loosen our grips, and go with it, it can feel like pure adrenaline. Like at any moment we can have another chance at life. Like at any moment we can be born all over again.”

-Meredith Grey, Grey’s Anatomy

Change is a really hard thing for me. I don’t do well with it and have been known to brace my feet against the door and hold with all my might at the past. I guess it’s a fear of the unknown, a need to control, a lack of will. Maybe it’s simply the fear that what is to come won’t measure up. Maybe I forgot the phrase, “the best times of your life have not yet been lived.” Maybe it’s just simply a lack of faith. Faith that God has good things planned, that He has ALL things planned. Maybe it’s a little fear of that fact too.

I have mentioned before my need for comfort and contentment. I like living within my comfort zone. But, the only thing that’s wrong with being in that comfort zone is that nothing ever changes when you’re in it. My first thought is, yeah, that’s why I like it. It’s stable and unwavering. But it’s also a crutch. There’s no growth there. There’s no fulfillment. It’s like living in a perpetual existence of waiting and receiving no satisfaction. It’s also a lie.

Like the quote from Grey’s Anatomy (bite me, I like that show and you have to admit that statement is good…I left out all the science parts because I’m more a social sciences kinda person), change is constant. Think about life: our bodies, age, the seasons/weather, time, fashion styles, phrases, music, art, knowledge, and technology. All of those things change. They don’t necessarily disappear, but they become less relevant as that change occurs. They may influence our change, but they do not remain constant.

This is true of our past as well. Letting go of that past, or rather moving onto a new part of life is so hard. What if we never find that again? What if that’s the best it will ever be? What if it’s too hard to make new memories, accept new things, be different? What if moving on, changing, and/or growing means nothing IS permanent? That’s such a scary thought that we usually don’t even let it cross our minds. That’s the goal for most of us, right? Go to school, get a job, buy the house & stuff, build a family. It’s all in pursuit of building stability, to create permanence. 

But to think that we can escape change is, just as they said, unnatural. God created us for a need for change. The whole idea of surrendering your heart to Him is built upon the idea that we need a change to begin with. Growth is impossible if we cannot and will not change. Growth is a change. 

Where I am dealing with only subtle changes in my life (well they are huge to me), the real ones I am experiencing are within myself. It’s kind of confusing for me. I feel like I have been plucked from my existence, grown a decade and then placed back to live the same life. (Haha when I told my brother-in-law that he was like; well you haven’t aged a day. And I was like oh great, so I still look 13?). My desire to maintain stability, comfort, and avoid pain keep me from beginning the outward representation of that change in my life.

I feel like big change is around the corner for my life. I feel like God is using this time as a preparation for that change. There are specifically 5 areas in my life (myself, my relationship with God, the unspoken issue I mentioned yesterday, relationships with friends God is putting on my heart to love on, and my job) that I know for a fact God has big plans for me (and big changes in the somewhat near future) that He is readying me for. I am honestly excited and scared out of my mind. The strength alone required for those changes seems to be in short supply within me. I guess that’s why God keeps bringing me back to this place where He reminds me I can’t do it alone.

Realizing we have needs that we can’t fulfill on our own is a part of change too. Physical change is scary, but you learn to accept it whether you learn to love it or not. Emotional, spiritual, & psychological change, those must be developed. I’m learning first hand that it isn’t as simple as just accepting that change, we must grow to desire it as a part of our existence, our transformation. We all want to be better people; to know God’s will for our lives. He tells us in Romans 12:2a, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” God is calling us to real change.

Change is inevitable. I don’t know about you, but I really don’t want it to feel like death for me. I want the “second chance at life.”

Will you embrace this and allow God to nurture your heart in preparation for the change He has in store? Or will you just keep cowering in fear?