Release, let God Renew
I do not know about you all, but during the busyness of life, I forget a lot; the chaotic nature of days with a little one moves some chores further down the list. Let's take watering plants - easily thrown into the nonessential pile. It's why I can count the number we have sprinkled haphazardly around our house on one hand.
Every now and then, I glance over at the small one lovingly squeezed into a corner of our bathroom, bursting with specks of green, and remember to water it. On this particular day, I noticed brown leaves drowning the greenery. It dawned on me, for weeks, I kept feeding what no longer lived. Rather than prune it, I continued hurriedly watering, instead of seeing its shedding as a pathway to new life.
What are you clinging to for the sake of appearances? Are you afraid of changes God has ahead, because you do not know how others will react? Slowly, a kind of spiritual suffocation takes root as we tighten our grip on familiar experiences, tugging at these like security blankets. And it is impossible to understand what God is preparing, and remain open to his promises. We are adrift in a symphony of sameness.
Do not feel bad. I stand alongside you in this dilemma, sweet friends, both desiring change and simultaneously running away. But I do know this with certainty - I desire deeply to feel what God wants to manifest in my life, our lives as a family, and this means saying goodbye to the weights of worry, anxiety, fatigue, and doubt. When I want to reach back to these
Some of my friendships already have evolved or evaporated - taken different shapes, their force no longer a presence in my life. For the first time in life, this extroverted woman is learning it is ok to say no to what no longer feeds me - people pleasing, one-sided friendships, and giving away so much of my spirit that little remains for God and me.
Our creator cannot birth something novel and divine in our lives if we cling to the old.
You and I have to ask God to prune us, renew our minds, clear the toxicity in these hearts so our transformation can begin taking root.
"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." Isaiah 43:19