Leave it all behind

12/18/2012
"If I saw you on the street, and you said come and follow me, would I have to give up everything? All I once held dear, and all of my dreams? Would I love you enough to let go? Or would my love run dry when you ask for my life?"
     Tonight I drove up to the my spot again, on the top floor of the parking garage. I usually go there to think and clear my head; Gainesville stars are just so incredibly beautiful when all the world is quiet. There's been so much I've struggled with lately, it's felt like a raging war inside of me for so long that there are times when I can actually feel the burn come to the surface-and I just break. Like I did as soon as I let my face fall into my hands as my head rested on the steering wheel. Numbing emptiness, and tears of chaos and  confusion. "Where are you, God?" I demanded.
    I was so angry with Him, and I wanted to hear him. Yet no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't hear a thing.

But just as He has proven to be so faithful before, Sidewalk Prophets started singing the words to the song You Can Have Me on the radio. And I heard him- for the first time in a long time. I stopped at these words:

"Would I love you enough to let go?"

   ...That's when it hit me.
"Jesus....do I?"

      That numbing emptiness was almost instantly replaced by uncontrollable sobbing and tears as I felt His grace, His mercy, His healing powers of redemption and forgiveness wash over me. I remembered that prayer I used to pray every night- "Take it all, it's all yours, I want to give you everything." I felt my walls come crashing to the ground as the song played on. Because I realized that I was holding on to so many things that had become idols in my life. Things that I don't think I was prepared to lose. And lately I've been so bitter, because I felt like I had lost so much. But was it really that much?

 I felt like I lost my mom to depression and an unhealthy relationship with another man. I struggled with my health because of the asthma that posed a challenge to my future career in the Navy and in my life. I spent countless sleepless nights losing so much energy and longing to go back to Africa to see my little orphan boy, Okia. I fell in love with someone who I trusted and felt that God had told me to never give up on him, only to watch him change into someone I didn't know and someone who broke my heart without ever realizing it. I started to realize more things about myself that I couldn't see before, things that I had stuffed away over the years and didn't truly take the time to heal and forgive people in my life who had hurt me growing up. So much more that I clung to as they all just slipped through my fingers.

All of these things that paled in comparison to you. I needed to learn to give not just some things up, but even the things that I thought I had desired most in this life. I think I had given so much time and energy trying to hold on and keep these things for as long as I could, because they brought me moments of joy before. But see, the point was never to hold on to those things, but to see Jesus in every single one of those people, conversations, smiles, every laugh, every memory- and to be reminded how He loved me in those moments. And how even though those things are gone, He stayed. He is the precious that is extracted from every moment in your life that is gone and passed. And those little reminders of hope and love are the fuel that keeps us going, the building blocks of our heart that makes us the Angel or the warrior of His here on this Earth.

 Learn to let go of those things. Learn to cherish life in every moment with the promise in your heart that you are prepared to give it up to Him when it's time to surrender everything, EVERYTHING, to the one who carries you through.

Let go, and let God.

As I was leaving the garage, Casting Crowns started playing on the radio with the song The Well.
"Your pursuit of perfection.
Your fear of rejection.
Your temporary pleasures.
All your earthly treasures.
Dried up empty religion.
Rusty chains of addiction.
All the guilt that weighs you down
Just leave it all behind- And come to the well."

               So that's what I did. I left if all behind. Jesus, it's yours. And I'm coming to the Well<3