Most Americans woke up today and pledged a commitment to a better tomorrow. You know the drill… healthier eating habits, more consistent exercise, better control of spending habits, intentional parenting, a new time management system, etc.
Even if you aren’t the resolution-making type, I bet you still woke up this morning with high hopes. Hopes that this year would be filled with blessing and promise.
Hopes that even just one thing that you do this year would reap harvest.
I woke up this morning with that hope. Hope that this journey is leading to healing and redemption. Hope that the tears will be less frequent and the clouds will not loom.
I woke up this morning full of ideas for how to jump into this new year as a better person. But sadly, I fear that these ideas will be inadvertently packed away with the Christmas ornaments until next year when I will once again pledge to a better tomorrow.
Maybe your life is like mine and you’ve spent far too many years on the hamster wheel…frantically running in the same circle, trying to find the answers to the same problems, only to come up empty.
It’s time to make a change. Not in what we eat, spend, or do (although those things might be good too). But I need a change in what I have packed away from the past.
The thing is… I can’t make changes for tomorrow until I’ve unpacked the suitcases that haunt my yesterday.
Because all of this baggage hides who I really am. It makes dark the seal of adoption that God has placed over my life and pronounces lies of doom and defeat.
If I am to be of any use in God’s plan, I must get rid of all that keeps my feet from moving. First up…insecurity. Closely followed by feelings of rejection, failure, and abandonment. One by one, the walls will fall and a new day will dawn.
How about you? Is there anything you need to unpack this year? Will you join me in facing the New Year with hope?
Kim Sorgius
Kim is just a girl, crazy in love with Jesus. She's a single mother of 4, a passionate homeschooler and life-long student. After teaching 8 years in public school, she traded her M.A. in Early Childhood for sippy cups and homeschool co-ops. Kim is the owner and editor of The Homeschool Village and Not Consumed where she encourages others to rest victoriously in the hands of God, rather than allowing life's difficult circumstances to consume.
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As I read your post this morning, I felt the need to share this book with you- Traveling Light by Max Lucado. It is a great book and its about leaving all the “baggage and luggage” behind so that we may fully live in and with Him! It’s a great book that I thought you may enjoy and it fit the theme of your post! Happy New Year!
For the last year, I’ve had to do a lot of unpacking, a lot of letting go… Really, for the past three years. My life was the best it had ever been and it all fell apart. I had been praying a prayer learned from hearing it many times from a former, much loved pastor – “LORD, do in me what you must to do through me what you will.” I had no clue where that would lead.
It started with explainable exhaustion. Malnutrition from a surgery I allowed myself to be talked in to foolishly, which was nothing compared to the anemia it caused. Top that off with serotonin syndrome caused by my not knowing it was not okay to take two of my medications together. And that was only the beginning.
I began having blackouts. Epilepsy centers, hospitals, numerous sleep doctors and neurologists… I have narcolepsy and some kind of misfiring in my frontal lobe that no one has explained to me yet. During all this, I found out, at 33 years old, that my father isn’t actually my father, my two half-brothers were not al all biologically related to me, and my sisters are really my half-sisters. I have Narcolepsy. And I have C-PTSD. Memories of being molested by (who I thought was) my 14 year old brother beginning at 4, if not earlier, resurfaced. I still black out every day, usually two or three times consecutively I’m told, but I never remember waking in between. I’ve been disassociating since I was four, depersonalizing everything, and coping through derealization. I have watched my body go through “life” without really ever living. And I had no clue. There is a slue of other issues, severe migraines, fibromyalgia, OCD, …. it’s a very long list.
I wanted to start this year with fresh hope. I wanted to start it with my husband and my kids doing something together that we enjoy.
Reality – we were all up, the kids were watching tv, my husband was texting my brother in law about some football game, and I was cleaning. We went to bed. I went to help my mom cook “New Year’s Lunch”, and I couldn’t. I cleaned up for her some, but I couldn’t figure out what to do to help in the kitchen. I finally decided I needed to sit down for a bit before dinner and walked to the room my nephew was playing the computer in to talk to him and get in the recliner. I remember walking in there. The next thing I remember is that my leg was in excruciating pain and I couldn’t stop screaming. I still feel like screaming but for other reasons.
I wanted to start with hope, with joy, with love, with so many good things. And I’m struggling – I have been angry today, with myself mostly, and with GOD, and that is so hard to admit. I’m so ashamed that I was angry and that I asked GOD why so many times and didn’t hear a thing. I know HE never has to tell me why. I know I should be fine with knowing I may never understand HIS plan. I am struggling with trusting all of a sudden because I feel let down. By GOD. How can I even have such a horrid thought?!?!? And yet, I know, I KNOW, that he does have a plan, that I can’t see the whole picture, and that even though I’m acting like a spoiled brat, HE still loves me, and even when I fall and get hurt, HE’s still holding me in the palm of HIS hand.
And I know that HE is the only reason I finally decided to get online and read emails tonight. I really didn’t want to. I just kept getting this OCD-type feeling that I had to read my emails. I know this was HIS way of showing me that I’m not alone in my struggle. And I really needed that tonight.
Thank you for sharing this! I’ll keep you in my prayers, and I’ll keep praying for HIM to give you reason every day to keep your hopes high and keep letting go of that baggage and moving forward!
Tara
Insecurity – it’s a lie in our hearts, isn’t it. It’s also something that others feed upon. When they see us coming – they know us…they know the hurt heart they see in front of them and the desire to love and be loved…. Me, I’m not just letting go of insecurities, I’m letting go of the ones who feed off of it!