Let go to be free. What a conundrum.
Risk
How do I go about letting go of something that is enmeshed in my identity? Something that is so entrenched in my psyche that if I let it go I might also lose me?
Sheila Walsh asked a capacity crowd of women to take a risk. “It’s time to have an unedited conversation with God.” Let go of what troubles you the most.
She told her sisters that where your scars are, there is your authority. God has met you in those painful moments and walked you through. Your suffering has a shelf life. God is bigger than the broken pieces in your life.
God understands your frailty and offers his grace. Grace and karma are opposites.
Karma says, “You got what you deserved.”
Grace says, “God gives you more than you deserve or can imagine.”
Leave What You Let Go
Sheila asked each woman to write down on a piece of paper what she needed to let go. Have an unedited conversation with God. Then leave what you let go with God.
Initially, one pioneer made her way from her seat and walked to the front. She came bearing a piece of paper containing her list. She had her conversation with God and let go of her paper. Then, dozens and dozens and dozens of other women followed her example.
Many with tears laid down their lists, paused to pray. Some had others pray with them before resolutely returning to their seats.
Letting Go
So often wounds of childhood echo into our adult lives.
It’s true that children are the best recorders of information but the worst interpreters of that information.
Letting go of the hurtful is not easy. It is worth the effort.
Don’t let it back in when it begs to come home. You’re never going back, the past is in the past.
Bob, Jocelyn, Sheila Walsh, Barry Walsh
Shine the brightest light in the darkest places.
What do you need to let go? Please leave a comment below. Thank you.
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I have a lot to let go. Following Sheila’s offering to the women of North Pointe, I bought a notebook from Michaels and decided to pray out my troubles and find my devotion and testimony with God in those pages. I noticed it had 120 pages and I wondered, “will this be enough?”
I wasn’t sure 120 pages could house my complaints, disappointments, frustration, resentments, and struggles and still leave room for God.
I half-kidded myself, “I could ration myself to three pages a day. You know, one for the Father, one for the Son, and one for the Holy Spirit.”
120÷3 is 40.
40 days and nights of rain. Goliath taunting Saul’s army for 40 days before David came to slay him. The temptation of Jesus for 40 days. And, what Sheila had shared, Elijah travelling for 40 days and 40 nights fleeing from Jezebel. And God shows up.
So, I am 6 pages / 2 days in to my 40 days of trial, into my gut-level conversation with God, and just about to start my next meeting with Him.
He has Already shown up.
I cannot accurately describe my last 36 hours. But, God has shown up and He keeps showing up and I am amazed at what faith can do.
Penny, that is a lot. You were the little girl on the red and white Sunday School school bus that came to Central Tabernacle for one Sunday over 25 years ago. I hope as you write down your thoughts, there will be moments of restored childlike innocence where you can scribble an image of a cross, an empty tomb, a dove, or a footprint as reminders of God’s grace available to you for all you have faced. Faced, not alone but with Jesus. You asked him into your life years ago and He promised to never leave you or forsake you. Grace and love to you, Penny.