I’m about to willingly embrace a hard season by my yes. If you are anything like me, most hard seasons have come uninvited and unasked. It is one thing to have to accept what is out of your control and another to be inclined to agree to taking on hard.
It would not have necessarily been my natural choice after all we’ve walked in the last 8 years although I am choosing yes to whatever direction I am being led. Left to myself I’d attempt to stay comfortable, protected, take on what I can feel control over. Yet experience says to me that’s to try to control staying safe is an illusion-ticking time bomb.
As humans, our deepest yearnings long for more. We were created for more. And so this means often embracing what is uncomfortable and dangerous feeling yet becomes wrapped in the safest place one could be. There’s nothing safe about self preservation and excuses marked by fear. Life isn’t safe. Learning to feel safe, secure, known within the journey is the real safety within real living.
Here is an analogy that came to mind about learning to say yes when you would rather not.
My parents taught me that if you were ever in an accident you didn’t want to delay driving again because you would only allow fear to build that would grow in hindering you to do so. Get in the car as soon as you were able. Safely able to do so.
After an accident where my best friend's two year old ran behind my van, and died, I didn’t drive for two weeks. But I knew I needed to. I didn’t press myself but what I’d been taught was imbedded in the back of my head. And so. Eventually. I did. It took two whole weeks but I got back in the car.
Even this was baby steps. I didn’t back up for a very long time. I chose parking spaces I could pull through. I circled around circles, thru grass if I had to, whatever it took to park facing forward. I held my breathe when I watched others back up. And had to watch. It took courage and strength to take each step.
We moved not too long after the accident. We bought a house that had a steep hill with no space to turn around. Backing up was inevitable. More breath holding. Counting heads the whole time of the children who stood right next to me the entire time anyone was backing up.
Until one day as I watched my husband leave for work, I realized I didn’t count. I was still breathing regularly. I felt overwhelming surprise. I felt grateful.
Fear did not go away in a moment. And a trigger can still surface occasionally. But through every day learning to live, love, be…healing did occur. I’ve driven a lot of places and lived a lot of amazing life because I faced fear, said yes and got back in the car.
That’s the image I have today in my mind. Groaning a cry to my Heavenly Father that I’m choosing to say yes to Him is like getting back in the car again. And I’m afraid to back up. But I know He is with me. And the best adventures are the ones behind the wheel with Him. Even if they are handicapped at first to avoid some turns before they are healed enough to be able to freely breathe again.
I’m not advocating forcing yourself to jump right back into to anything. It took 2 weeks to get back in the car. It took years to breathe through backing up. It took even longer to what I’m embracing in this moment.
I’m simply saying don’t give into fear as you learn to live again. It’s ok to live again. It’s more than ok. It’s necessary. Let your yes be the next part of healing. Trust the Father that your yes to Him is knowing He is who He says He is, He’ll do as He promises to do and you will learn who you are and always were at the core-never more loved, more secure, more wanted. Take it one step at a time, not jumping ahead. Let Him guide you.
Photo credit: Hadassah Sears
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