Please forgive me – I had to RESEND this due to an incorrect link in the previous email. Let’s start again shall we? In the famous words of Frozen – let it go – let it go – let it go! This soars through my thoughts like wind through the trees! I hear so deep I can’t touch it yet I find myself deafened by the sound with the knowing that I must LET IT GO! LET IT GO! LET IT GO!
Honestly, it seems like we have been in transition forever and now we are finally over the hump and positioning into position. Now what? Let it go. It still feels awkward and it still seems like we are not quite there. It FEELS transitional even though we have indeed moved into the next place. Real life is stranger than fiction and more complex than soap operas. You just can’t make up real life and in all of life we must all learn to let it go.
AT THE END OF THE BLOG – I am offering a free conversational PDF teaching called WAR IS MESSY.
Friends Become Family
Our closest friends who have become family are moving away after ten years of living life together. They are our children – we are Mom and Dad on many many levels though her mom lives and his dad lives. How did this happen? Living together – eating together – dieting together – learning together – crying together – forgiving together – deciding together – praying together – growing together – this has been a season of loving and being loved and it has changed us all. It is a new day and the old has passed away and so we are letting that old day go and embracing the newness God offers us all. Family is not based on geographic location or church membership. Family is a positioning in Him and one another. Part of our family is repositioning 4 1/2 hours away. Birthday parties will be a longer commute. Dinner may have to be via Skype. Weekends may turn into 4 day holidays. It will be inconvenient and take much more effort and we all have our own lives, our own ministries, our own identities yet we know deep within we are life long family members and our calling to know one another and be known by one another is far from over. Now, we will cross culture even again – we will get to know their new community and wherever we go – our community will get to know them too. We will still be Mom and Dad and they will still be the kids. We cry with peace for all we have waiting before us – some known and some unknown and as we watch with joy, we let it go.
Left – Right – Middle
Let’s talk about two real life scenarios of lives taken before their time. On the left hand, we have a strong, godly invincible man who unexpectedly died. He fought the good fight and suddenly, he was gone. He left a beautiful wife, young adult children, a thriving business, and a strong ministry in his church community. A city was strongly and brightly impacted by his mission of kindness, love, mercy, integrity and purity. Countless men and women, boys and girls were impacted by his continual faithfulness. Faithful. Faithful. Faithful. Not his choice. Not what he wanted. He chose life over and over and then it was let go. At the same time of his passing, in our church family, a woman was fighting for her life with similar symptoms yet somehow and thankfully – she pulled through. On the right hand, in that same twenty four hour period another young woman passes and leaves children who will only see her through Facebook and picture memorabilia. I did not know her personally, but knew of her and knew her family through social media and prayerful thoughts exchanged over time. Interestingly, she died in the same town our family friends are moving to – small world. I don’t understand but my troubling heart has had to let it go. Right smack dab in the middle of my private world and community, there is a woman in her late twenties, who has been in pain for many many years. She has been sick for many many years and been on pharmaceutical prescriptions to help her stay alive for many many years has chosen what some will feel is unthinkable. She prayed through an excruciating thought and decided to also let it go. Sustained by the care and expertise of medical professionals and in hospitals countless times – a day came when her rubber met with His road on the inside of where her trust in a real God lives. Blood transfusions to live. Saline solution to rehydrate. Exhausted, she was pricked by this needle and that doctor and sliced by this knife and pierced by that life saving apparatus. Then, one day, she decided deep inside to let it go. She decided she did not want to live a lifestyle composed of needles, blood and pain and she let it go. She let her parents go. She let her aunt go. She let her sibling go. She let her grandparents go. She let her friends go and she let her fears go. She let herself go. Not an easy decision for anyone to make but in this case it was not anyone’s decision – it was hers. Painfully. Physically. Mentally. Emotionally. Spiritually. She let it go.
Live Fearlessly
Everything within me wants to rescue. Everything within me screams so loud inside my spirit and soul, NOOOOOOOOOO!!! IT’S NOT TIME! IT’S NOT TIME! I ask myself – did the enemy steal, kill and destroy early? Did he plot and plan early? He certainly did this in my own life…I see his traces in my steps. Even so, we have a faithful Father Who sees and knows the strategies of the enemy and positions us to know Him and to be known by Him and so the enemy DOES NOT WIN this round with these lives. The man impacted more than one can count with his life and knowing God the way I do – I guarantee God will live through this UNEXPECTED event and cause many more to come to know Him. This would be his desire. This was his heart throb – that a world come to know HIM. Moreover, HE drew this amazing young brave young woman to His side and captured her with His unconditional love and mercy and holds her tight. HE so tightly holds her that she has no fear but knows she will move from this side of eternity in His arms to the other side of eternity in His arms. WHAT?? ZERO FEAR?? YES! ZERO FEAR! This bravery for passing onward into the next place of living is because of a real relationship with a very real Father. Common Denominator between these two strong saints? Jesus is real and they both knew it. They both lived fearlessly. Fearless living is one of the strongest lessons we face is it not? It is what HE wants all of us to learn! At the crux of it all is the trust in an unseen FATHER not just a God. This is the kind of stuff that unravels untried theology and this is the legacy she leaves that will impact a world.
Let God and BE BRAVE
What is the bottom line to let it go? Scripture tells us to rejoice with those who rejoice and to weep with those who weep. I’ll be honest with you – I’ve been weeping for the past three days. The last time I felt like this was when my sister died – CLICK TO READ END OF LIFE. As I have been mourning, HE has been comforting me and loving me. And truly this has been my state of being – weeping…crying….asking….seeking…knocking…interceding. I’ve been taking my troubled heart and unsettled questions to the Only One that I know has REAL ANSWERS regarding these real life situations – my Father and this is what He has said to me, “There comes a day – a time – to let it go.” HE has been walking with me long enough for me to know that HE REALLY means it…it is time to let some things go…it is time to press forward. I mean – REALLY. So, I challenge you today to move into tomorrow and truly let some things go and the first place HE looks are in the issues of our heart. So, be BRAVE. What do you need to let go? Are you speaking critically to yourself or others? Be BOLD and admit it. Let it go. Are you a shotgun sending gossiping and complaining bullets about events and people that are just not your business? Grab a greater RESPECT for yourself and others and take ACTION and why don”t you just LET IT GO? Change your mind. Don’t be a weapon of the enemy when you will never be VICTORIOUS armed with shots of disunity. BRAVELY decide to be in one accord with The Most Faithful and Loving One we know. You see….in the midst of living real life with real challenges….we have a real God Who intervenes and offers Himself as the Buffer, the Comforter, the Stabilizer, the Peace, the Joy, the Strategist, the Companion and finally, the Home Coming. I ENCOURAGE you to put your hand in the hand of the Man Who stills the water. Be BRAVE and let it go. All of it. Then, let God.
I am offering a free conversational PDF teaching called WAR IS MESSY:
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Don’t be frozen – let it go! #letitgo #bebraver #loveisthenewgreen
Much love and until next time,
d