The Encounter pt. 4: Letting Go

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 Up until this moment (which would've been Saturday), God was preparing me. He set my journey into motion, He led me into situation after situation that set my focus on Him. In counseling I discovered a lot of the issues that held me down. Then, God opened my eyes to the biggest pain of all. I began to see the condition of my heart and realize just what holding onto everything had done to it. But now, my mind had started to change: these events didn't cause the permanent damage that I thought they had. If I could open my heart to Him and give Him every hurt and care, He would get to work. And not only that, He's been waiting for me to do that all along.


My heart was ready. I knew what I needed to do and I had no desire to hold onto anything anymore. It's funny because I've heard all these things before ("cast your cares upon Him", etc etc) and I even believed them, but this weekend I saw it all in a new way. Like it was new to me. Like it was real to me. Since I started this journey, and probably even a little before, I wanted to let go but I didn't know how to physically, step by step do that. You know, in practical terms, what does "giving it to God" mean? How do you do that? I would even ask people that and couldn't get an answer other than "just give it to God" or "just have faith." I couldn't just say, "oh I'm giving it to God" because I didn't know how.

Saturday morning, message after message peeled back the layers of uncertainty of how to go about this.Without making you read an insane amount like the last several days, I'll try to go through it and just touch on things that stood out to me. One beautiful and powerful demonstration was shared (which I'll share about on the last day). Then a powerful woman, Helen Trowbridge, spoke about how God wants us to stop just surviving, and start thriving. We can't do that until we love ourselves and let go of the past. We don't have to be known by the past anymore, God can give us a new "name".
[She told the story of Jakub wrestling with God and how he wouldn't let go until God blessed him. God asked his name (which meant deceiver) and then gave him a new name (that meant struggles with God). When He asked his name, He wasn't just being literal, He was asking what he used to be known as (tricking his father for his brother's birthright) and then gave him a new character.]
Whatever we used to be known as (jealous, co-dependent, insecure, depressed, etc) can be changed. God can give us a new character. But in order to be changed, you have to give it to God. "What you don't reveal, God cannot heal."

At some point in the day, we were in our small groups and given a large nail. It was to represent what we needed to give to God, the thing in our lives that He's already paid the price for. We were going to go up and, one by one, nail it onto the cross as our group leader prayed over us. Some people had the nail represent one large thing. Others, like myself, attached a note with the nail. I can't tell you how excited I was for this. I knew the things that held me down and I was ready to put it where it belonged, on the cross. I'd be lying if I said mine wasn't the longest list in my group, but in a strange way, that excited me. I was able to give it all. (Haha, as we were waiting in line I remembered more, so I had to go back and get my pen! God wanted it all to come out!)

When it was my turn, I kept with the symbolism and nailed it at the foot of the cross. I was surprised at how hard it was to get that dang nail in there! In fact, at one point, (when I thought I was getting somewhere) I hit it and it flew out! My group leader jokingly said, "see the devil doesn't want you to give all this up, but no devil, it's going in!" I laughed but it's true ya know, he doesn't want us to let go of our issues because that's how he keeps us from trusting in God and reaching our full potential. And I'm glad it was hard! (Going with the symbolism) it was hard to get to that point of letting it all go. This has been one of the hardest seasons of my life and nailing my list to the cross was a reminder of that.

When it was in though, it was a perfect representation of how I finally felt. The weight of carrying all the pain and sorrow that I've held onto for a decade was finally out of my hands. I thought that was it, that was what God had wanted all along. But would you know, He still took it one step further!