I have been in a season of growing with God.

Although I have faced great joy, there has deep heartache and sorrow through my divorce and moving to Frederick.

One of the hardest things I have had to face was the reality that some of my children seemingly chose (for lack of a better word) their father over me. The pain was amplified by the fact that I stayed home and dedicated my whole life to them while their dad pursued what felt like success and other things, to put it mildly, over us.

The pain has reached new depths over this past season, and I finally realized I needed more of God to find healing.

“God,” I boldly prayed, “take whatever is between You and me.”

OUCH!

The level of pain around feeling rejection from my children climbed to an all-time high. Even places I had not experienced rejection before offered new levels of agony, that triggered old feelings as to why I left in the first place. Watching people in my past life move on as though I no longer exist, where I once was a valuable member of a community, served as a useful tool for the devil to get my eyes off my Lord and onto my sorrow.

“If you’d stayed married and in Annapolis, you would be enjoying all the great festivities happening there, as your children’s friends get married, have babies, etc.,” Satan stated a case that distracted me from the place God had called me to grow. “If you hadn’t left then you’d have…’

Not too different than his lies to Jesus:

And he said to him, “All these I will give you if you will fall down and worship me.” Matthew 4:9

The only way to overcome the pain I was in was to cling entirely to God. Push everything else aside. Nothing could take precedence over my time with God. The Bible study I did periodically, once again became a daily commitment. I threw myself at the feet of my Savior, as He strengthened me to let go. Let go of my children and the dreams I had of our close relationship. My desire to be invited to weddings and showers of the friends of my children whom I loved and cared for so profoundly over the years, who seemingly forget about my presence in their life.

Let go.

During this season God revealed to me how my clinging to what was, or what I wanted it to be, was driving a wedge into what is. I have been blessed with a town where I get lots of invitations and though I don’t have deep roots here yet, I will.  I have been blessed with a man who loves me more than I can even begin to imagine, and it’s been damaging for me to cling to an old idea and moan about what isn’t, instead of embrace wholly what is front and center.

“I put you here for a purpose,” God made it clear to me, “will you just let go of the space I moved you from and grow where I have planted you.” He has been beating me over the head, telling me He is ready to bless me and I am resisting as I focus on the things and places that once filled my ideals.

Jeremiah 29:11
“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

So I did. I let go, and while there will still be areas where I will need to ask God for the strength to further let go, I can say I am more and more rooted where I am and whom I am with, as a result of asking God to take away that which stands between Him and me.

How about you? Are you able to do the work and accept what is over what you desperately long for?

Let me know, I’d love to hear from you.