Giving Up

All I've posted lately is some big, sappy blogs, lol.  Bear with me for one more.  My description of this blog includes it being my therapy.  I was half-joking when I said that, but today, I'm half-serious!

I think finding freedom in life requires that one continuously learn how to give up.  Giving up things.  Giving up people.  Giving up dreams.  Face it.  Life requires a series of giving-up's and there is no way to avoid it.  Tragedy's happen like the recent tornadoes and many people found themselves having to "give up" their homes.  People die which requires loved ones to temporarily (if they are born again Christians it's temporary) give them up.

Now while all of this could be a bad thing, I'm convinced that it's actually the best thing for a Christian to learn.  Maybe even one of the keys to happiness? The past couple of weeks I've begun to really gain some freedom from bondage that only is coming as a result of giving up.  As I begun to plan our school year, last year I cried.  I cried all the time.  You see, I knew that I was about to lose something...and someone.  This was my last year homeschooling my oldest son and I knew he was about to embark upon life as an adult.  He's on the threshold looking back at his nest, almost ready to leap and fly. So I cried a lot.  And worried about whether I taught him enough and wondered if I needed Prozac to get me through this.

The thought has occurred to me that the reason I've felt so much anxiety is because I haven't learned the art of Giving Up.  I've had "dreams" that if God had granted them, they would have ended in disaster most likely. I've had to learn to give those up. I've had "things" that cluttered my life and drew me away from God.  God said give them up. The truth is there are things that God never intended to be mine. My kids are one of those things.  The truth is they do not belong to me.  They belong to God!  Always have.

The Lord and I have wrestled about this, this year.  And I can't believe how much peace it has brought me to "Give Up" to God.

I'd wish I could say this is the only thing I've ever wrestled with God about but it's not. I've found that in my life, it's not "dead" to oneself...it's a constant "dying" to oneself that I have to do.  You see, most of the time, I do not even realize that I'm trying to hang on to...control....the things in my life, until I'm faced with changes that I can't control. Once I'm faced with that, I then realize that I have been trying to hang on to some things God wants me to give up. These are the lessons that the Lord is teaching me.

I want to give up every area of my life, to my sovereign God. I can trust Him.  I choose to trust Him.

And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it.
(Mark 8:34-35)