On Being Plagued- and Letting it GO!

To say things are not going very smoothly with the house would be an understatement. Things just keep coming up. Last week, every single day brought a new dilemma. I cried a lot. I felt a little like Job (I know, grossly exaggerated, but true). How was I supposed to keep my chin up, confident that things would turn out OK and that we were doing the right thing, when I kept getting heaping helpings of crap?

I mean, I'm a good person, right? I try to live my life the best way I can. I say my prayers. I treat other well. I help out whenever I can. I am grateful for my family, my job, and the roof over my head.

So, WHY OH WHY, does so much seem to be going wrong? Do I look at it as a sign that we aren't doing the right thing? Have I not been listening enough, not paying attention to His whispers, His taps on the shoulder? Do I take it personally and come to the conclusion that this must be punishment for something...

Well, I could do that. I could go by the idea that God controls every little bit of my life and has His fingers in everything. That all of this negative stuff is piled on because I deserve it.  I mean, I really do believe deep down that God is not really interested in punishing us. I believe He is more interested in us growing in Him. But, there's that little bit of doubt wiggling in the back of my head.

Nope. Instead, I chose to look at it in the "God helps those who helps themselves" vein of thought. I realized that I was holding on tightly to the idea of "what we should sell for" "what the house is worth" "why this" and "why that" blah blah blah. SO tightly that I was white-knuckled, hand-cramped, sweaty, fearful and breathless...

And then came the epiphany... with a little help from Shannon... and listening to Him. I realized that holding on wasn't the answer. It wasn't about the "what ifs" and the "what do we do nows?" It was about understanding that there was another direction to go, another way to look at all of the problems.

Chris and I let it go. We opened our hands (figuratively), and our hearts (literally) and let it go. We punted the whole thing back to Him. We realized that we had to let go in order to go forward. We were held back by our own desires. We were caught up in the whole process... You know when you walk into a spiders' web, and it wraps around your head, and you spin and spin, arms whorling, hands flailing, trying to get it off? Yeah, it was like that. But, once we freed ourselves from the stickiness, we took a deep breath and walked away. Emotionally, we just let it go, and it was freedom!! It was like all (ok, just some) of the stress immediately lifted. I felt like I could breathe again. We realized it was OK.

I'm not going to pretend that the whole thing has been easy. But it sure has been eye-opening. We still have closing to get through, but we are really focussed on what comes next!

So tell me, what are you holding on to??

Hugs, Lee