This afternoon my daughter and I went for a long drive. It’s mid October and the weather was absolutely beautiful so I didn’t want to miss a single moment of it. I decided to take her cruising through the old neighbourhood. I suppose you could call it a drive down memory lane.
We used to live in an old character home. The bottom half of the exterior was butter-cream and the top half was covered in brick-red cedar shingles. We took good care of the property including the grape vines that enclosed the back yard and the raspberry bushes that snuggled up against the back shed. I used to spend hours on end digging and planting and pulling up weeds. In fact I spent more time outside than I ever did in. The yard was small, but we’d often throw a blanket down on the grass, and have a picnic or toss a ball with the kids.
It’s since been painted bright yellow, the front yard is covered with junk, and the entire place is over grown with weeds.
It’s the kind of yard you look at and say, “What happened here?!” under your breath.
But the thing is that it’s not my home any more, and as difficult as it might be sometimes, I have to let go. I have to accept the fact that someone else is sitting on my front steps and baking bread in my kitchen.
Letting go can be one of the most difficult steps that we take in our lives. Letting go of a house is fairly easy, but letting go of a job or a friendship? That’s an incredible challenge.
A few years ago, I got to wondering “Is there something wrong with me? Why do I have broken friendships? Is this common?”
As the days passed by, I started to notice that it wasn’t just me. We live in a broken world in which we lose things that we desperately want to hang on to.
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“It’s easy to hang on to the things that we are familiar with, but it takes courage to walk in faith.” …Writing this in my journal… and on the tablet of my heart! Thank you!!
I’m glad you liked it.
Letting go and trusting is hard. When I was in college, I had an amazing core group of friends. We went to school together, lived in the same buildings and went to church together. Four years of doing life together brought us very close, through good times, personal trials, group dynamics, etc. When I graduated and came back home, the hardest things was losing this group of people. The next 7 years would be an empty time for me regarding friendships. I tried multiple times, in various places, with different people to build a close friendship, but nothing held. I came home one night so hurt and devastated at another attempt that failed that I told my husband I was done trying to have friends. About 6 months later, God did bring two amazing women into my life that have filled my desire for close friends in more ways than I can count. We are all in the same place, married with young kids, and have found each other a great source of encouragement, support and love. God is faithful to give us the desires of our hearts, if we will trust Him.
Becca, I love that God brought these two women into your life. That’s awesome! So many of us can relate to that empty feeling we go through in the between times.
God knew how much I needed this! Thank you!
Awesome!
To Let Go and Let God. Todays prayer is a hard one for me. I am still learning to let God. Lord give me the courage to walk in faith. I will trust in You to restore my marriage and wife.
You know my story so you know I understand loss but even still it is never easy. Because I have this big ol heart, I tend to collect people. This can be a good thing and it can be a bad thing. I have discovered over the years that my husband is an excellent discerner of people who need to be out of my life. While I hang on and continue to care for them, he makes the break and creates a toll bridge where they have to go through him to get to me. In this way he protects my heart. It is the one thing that remained constant during the dark years.
I am a packrat of people. I need them in my life but I tend to hold them at arms length because I am never quite sure if I am “enough”. My recent experiences have made me cautious about everything. I knew and cared for the woman my husband had an affair with…that kind of betrayal makes everything and everyone suspect. But in the grand scheme of things, I need trust my husband to create a safe zone for me. Now that he has truly become the spiritual leader in our home, I CAN trust that he will seek God in all things, including those people who need to be in my life and those who don’t.
I love the line about it taking courage to walk in faith. It is so very true. My husband admires how strong I am but I am just like Peter, I may get out of the boat, but too often my eyes drift to the water instead of remaining on Jesus. Thanks for this today. You reminded me of something I need to tell Rich. He has been begging me for some morsel of good that I can remember from the dark years but I haven’t been able to focus on any…now I have one that is hugely important. Thanks again!
That’s great encouragement Linda. Thank you for sharing your heart with us.
On a side note, I DID share that revelation with Rich last night and you should have seen the look on his face when he realized I had remembered something that did not make him look like a jerk. I have come up with little things in the past few months but each time I share them, he comes back with a reason why they aren’t “good” things because of his actual motives at the time. It has been heartbreaking for me because I want him to know that I am letting go of the past as quickly as humanly possible. Last night was a huge step in the direction of HIS healing! Thanks again!
Thank you for walking in faith with courage and sharing your story! Having just started to emerge from those same dark times (with God leading the way) I truly can connect with it. May our Almighty God continue to bless your marriage
Thank you! I’m so glad you’re here.
Thanks a lot for this post! It affirmed what God has worked hard to teach me that to grow, will mean that i will be stretched and certainly not always feel comfortable.
‘Don’t put your hope in the gift, put your hope in the giver’
I’m loving that ! I have joined in halfway through the 31 days so I’m hitting the floor running now 🙂
I have really struggled in the past having lost a number of ‘Christian’ friends who judged me following the break up I’m my marriage ten years ago. They didn’t know the full story and at the time I asked them to support my husband of the time. They did and in the process not only forgot me and my friendship but turned against me and this was heart breaking for me. Did they not know me from our years of friendship to consider there may have been a bigger picture ? God worked wonders in my life once I handed this pain over to him. I trusted him and he removed the pain and brought into my life some new and wonderful friends.
Yesterday when I signed up to the 31 days, I also happened to see on Facebook the wedding picture of one of these ‘old’ friends, who was celebrating her 15th wedding anniversary. Her wedding picture was a fast trip back to the day when I had styled her hair, made her wrap and been there throughout her wedding day – what a close friendship we had then, the sort you would expect to last. I had a momentary reminder of the immense hurt I felt during the years later that I had to adjust to losing her friendship but yesterday’s reminder immediately reminded me that God has removed and carried that pain for me and I can give thanks to the team or more friendships I have made in the time since that have positively effected my life and where I am today. life can me hard but God is good ! Trust the giver ! I’m loving that thought and reminder today. thank you.
Amen! I absolutely understand your pain Melissa, and I’m thankful that God has led you through it. A wise friend reminded me the other day that these broken friendships will be reconciled in heaven. That’s going to be a wonderful day for all of us.
I have learned to lean on Proverbs 3:5 & 6- Trust in the Lord with all your hear, Lean not on your own understanding, In all your ways acknowledge Him and he will make your path straight. This has helped me through my husband getting arrested for drugs and going to a yr of a faith-based rehad. Now. our son is also in the same program. God is very good to me and has proven over and over how much I can trust Him.
Beautiful encouragement Hesper. Thank you!
I have learned from experience that at times ‘life’ has a way of throwing a punch and knocking you off your feet when you never saw it coming! When this happened to me, I was so thankful God ‘never leaves me or forsakes me’! Letting go and trusting God is the best gift I could give myself. God sees the bigger picture and I only see in part. God is a restoring God and has used every hurtful situation to demonstrate HIs love & power at work in my life. I just had to allow Him to be God in every area of my life, even in the painful pits. Everything I let go of and gave to God, in His timing, He has restored, in measures greater than I could have dreamed or imagined. God’s love stretches further than any pit of despair or discouragement. Great article…thanks!
Amen! Thank you, Lucy.
Beautifully said. =)
This was so very anointed and touched me all the way to the deep parts of my heart. Thank you so much for following the Spirit of The Lord! God is so very good. I’m thoroughly enjoying your book as well!! Bless You!!!!
Trisha, thank you for your encouragement. Sometimes I think a post isn’t all that good, and then it touches a reader and I’m glad that I didn’t over think it. God is good!
My husband has cheated several times and I have been trying so hard to forgive and forget the past. It is so hard though and there is nothing easy about it!!! I give all of this to God today to deal with and take control of because I can’t get over this on my own. Thank you for your words of wisdom.
I heard something wise this weekend. You don’t have to forget. Knowing where you came from can be a reminder of God’s amazing grace on your lives. Sometimes forgiving is an act of doing more than it is one of feeling. We don’t feel like we’re forgiving, but if we are loving and if we are bringing it to the Lord, then we are doing out part.