pressure and time

Pressure and time

That's all it takes to break free.

It’s been almost two years since I’ve written a post and the honest truth is I just can’t ignore God’s prompting to just start typing again any longer. 

And I’ve missed you.

A perfect place to pick back up again is to recap this past year in my life.  So here goes…

Exactly one year ago today – on this very day that I am writing this post – I was given a gift.  As I was composing this, I looked up the date and truly laughed out loud. 

Okay, God.  I get it.

A year ago, I was visiting a friend on my Christmas break from work, and when I arrived at her home, she gave me a simple wooden plaque.  It said, “The best is yet to come.”  It changed me!

It prompted the most absolute painful prayer I have ever prayed.  I asked God to unsettle me.  I asked for discomfort.  I asked for stretching.  He heard me.  He makes me brave.  He called me beyond the shore, and I asked for the waves to crash over me.

Why?  He is God over the storm.   He can part the waters.  The wind and waves still know His name.  I needed a breakthrough.  I knew that after the Israelites’ journey in the wilderness, they still had a battle to fight to get to the Promise Land.  I was finally ready for a battle and preparing for my promise land.  And I sure was tired of the wilderness.

About two weeks into this prayer and fasting time, I visited a church where the pastor started a series called Strong and Courageous.  He made this statement. “What happens when your faithfulness meets God’s promises?  There are benefits in the process.  Depend on God.”  I immediately giggled to God (probably out loud) when I heard it.  I knew this was exactly for me.

And the storm hit……..hard.

That is how 2015 started out for me.  It was a wreck.  At least that is how I felt inside.  I can’t hold back the tears when I think about that evening that started it all.  Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine the choices, the conversations, or events that this mom would have to go through for the next months.  It was the second hardest time in my life.  Ever.  My son and I experienced the worst time in our relationship.  I felt like I had lost him.  I didn’t know the next time I would see him.  I wasn’t sure if he would even graduate with only three months left of his senior year. 

Before there can be an external increase there has to be an internal enlargement. 

I knew God was in this.  The very night I was ending my forty days of fasting and believing for breakthrough, it happened.  While I was enjoying my dinner with my parents to break my fast I got a phone call.  Breakthrough was happening.  The next few months there was even more pain.  And I was glad because I knew that I knew that God was answering my prayers.  He knows what tomorrow brings.  He knows what we need. 

I recently watched a movie that has an ending that spoke volumes to me.  In it, a man was in prison and wanted to break out.  The man escaped by crawling.  He chose to crawl quite a distance through a river of poo and came out on the other side.  FREE.

A month ago, I was up late unable to sleep and I started reminding God.  I reminded Him that I believed His promises are true.  I reminded Him that I know He sees me.  He hears me.  He knows my every cry.  And then the next morning, I pulled into the parking lot at work, and He had this.  Just for me.

I would like to tell you the battle is over.  I would like to type a happy ending.  Not yet.  I may still be crawling through my river of poo, but the entire point of this post is to tell you to embrace the crawling.

Embrace the poo.  Because that is how you get free.

Inertia: Newton's first law of motion.  It states that an object at rest will stay at rest unless added upon by another force.

Pressure - helps to get us moving. Or at least it can.