Pumpkins and Promises: True Freedom

I'm a planner, a fixer. I organize, make lists, plan ahead and most often, I trust in my methods and plans to keep things, life, and quite honestly, myself, together.

Well, the past several months of our lives have been anything but "together". 😬🙄

We’ve juggled major health concerns and embarked on an elimination diet (and praise God, those health issues seem to be resolving). I’ve taken on homeschooling 4 kiddos and juggling a toddler, all while many days single momming because of a crazy work schedule and lots of demands on our daddy’s time because of massive ministry transitions, burdens, and extra responsibilities.
Simply put, life has been coming at us like 1 wave after another.

How about you?

Feel like you're drowning? Feeling overwhelmed? Feeling like you can't keep it together?

For me, when life starts happening to me like that, i grab hold of my plans and methods and hold them with white-knuckled angst and teeth gritted in determination that I will get it all done. I will fix it. I will keep it, keep us together....

And when I still can't, the voices of doubt, of shame, of guilt grow into a roaring crescendo of overwhelming pressure and weight that sinks me into immobility and depression.


My own plan became my master and now my judge!

And having miserably and repeatedly failed, I'm ready to quit.

Ever been there???

Enslaved to your own rules and rituals?
Chained to your idealistic methods and plans?

A precious friend sent me this reminder recently after an especially difficult week that left me literally wishing I could just run away.


My organization and discipline were never intended to keep us together. My plans and methods were never meant to be our Savior!

My plan is a terrible god.
My methods are lousy saviors.

They promise and do not deliver.
They heap up guilt and withhold forgiveness.

Rather than clinging tightly to my way, my plans, my control, I need to cling tightly to Jesus!

I need to remember that in Him I am accepted and free. I need to trust that He will hold us together.

He came so we could be free.
Truly free!!!

"I came that they may have life and have it abundantly." - John 10:10

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