Girl Talk // Kneel & Let Go

there have been times in my life where God has taken the thing i have my fingers grasped tightly to and whispered..."let go".  he never forces, it's a quiet and gentle command.  and it always takes me by surprise.  in my relatively short twenty-four years, i've boldly declared, time and again, what i thought i wanted, only to watch god change the course of that plan.

i've been reading a few books lately, one of which is ann voskamp's One Thousand Gifts.  this book led me to her blog, and somewhere along the way, i found this quote:

"god's not asking me to climb ladders - he's asking me to kneel and let go." -ann voskamp

i wrote it down immediately, thinking about how profound the concept is.  kneel and let go.  if only it were as easy as it sounds!

i've written before about my struggle to figure out what exactly i wanted to do with my life in college, and how those future plans again hit a speed bump this summer.  and more than anything else, more than any relationship or other desire, the greatest struggle for me has been to kneel and let go of what i want my future to hold, or what i think my five-year plan should be, or what i think my life should look like.  

and over the past ten months, i've been learning this lesson in a new way as well.  last may, my dad was diagnosed with lung cancer.  (fortunately, he's doing really well, but prayers are appreciated!)  but over the past ten months, my family has been learning what it means to kneel and let go when you're in the most dire and desperate of times.  we've been blessed by an awesome medical team at one of the country's best hospitals who have been taking great care of my dad, but ultimately, we know that all of his progress, and the journey that got us there, can be attributed to jesus.  

i think in both of these situations, with my future and with my dad's diagnosis, learning to kneel and let go has been instrumental to finding the peace that passes all understanding that the bible talks about.  and ann says it so well:  "god's not asking me to climb ladders…"  it's true!  he's asking you to take it one step at a time.  

he understands that this lesson is not an easy one to learn, that this control is not easy to give up.  just think…it must have been excruciatingly difficult to watch his own son die the most horrible death knowing that he could end it with a blink, but he let go, so that we could ultimately benefit.  he knows first-hand what letting go means.  that's one of my favorite things about god.  he's big and mighty and more glorious than we can even imagine, but he knows and has felt our deepest pain.  that's just mind-blowing to me.  

so the take-away….just four little words, (write 'em down!), kneel and let go.  kneel and let go.  kneel and let go.  when you're at your worst, when you're more desperate than you've ever been, get on your knees, hand it over to god, and let go.  try it, trust me.

what is god trying to tell you to kneel and let go of?  when have you see god's faithfulness through answered prayer?