It's Time To Live Again

Last night, I went to a women's group with my mom and the woman leading it said one thing that hit me to my core. Has that ever happened to you? You could hear the one sentence anywhere...a TV behind the bar at a restaurant, on the radio, a line in a song you've heard a hundred times...anywhere. It doesn't have to come from someone speaking from a pulpit, but this time it did.  

I wasn't even paying attention to what she was saying at the time because I was making sure the person who had Asher was getting him where he was suppose to go so that I could give him his meds on time and keep him on his strict bedtime schedule and texting and checking the time to see if we were going to make it and...

IT'S TIME TO LIVE AGAIN.

I stopped.  I put my phone down.  She said it again. 

IT'S TIME TO LIVE AGAIN. 

IT'S TIME

TO LIVE 

AGAIN

It was as if my Heavenly Father Himself stood in front of me, put each of His hands on my cheeks and leaned in to whisper in my ear...

My beloved daughter, it's time to live again. 

I have just been existing - not living - for far too long. A zombie, stumbling around my world. I don't know what it's gonna take to live but I need to acknowledge to myself and the world that it's not ok to wait one more day. 

The time of just existing was ok, I don't have to live in regret that I've been here. God will use it (and He already Has because I've learned so many rock-solid, lifelong lessons withIN it) but it has to be over. 

I don't even know who I am anymore. When I think back to the Courtney of 4 years ago and look at the Courtney now, I don't even recognize myself. The way I act, the lack of any real fun, no motivation to choose joy, everything SO heavy...willingly carrying baggage, CHOOSING TO CARRY IT OVER LETTING IT GO, every day.  

My pain feels so validated in the heaviness.

It's getting too comfortable. 

I'm beginning to find my purpose 

in carrying it. 

Oh, Jesus, help...

Like a blanket that's just a bit too heavy, I'm giving into just existing over living, surviving over thriving. Accepting this as my new normal.  I HAVE TO throw it off now. 

The longer I stay here, the longer I'll stay here. 

I need more than just existing or I'm going to die for good. I can't do this anymore. I can't exist from one session of spiritual CPR to the next.  Constant guilt that I can't STAY alive. 

A shock here, a jolt there from a 

holy defibrillator 

was never meant to 

sustain me for good. 

I need a new heart. 

And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. 

And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh 

and give you a heart of flesh. Ezekiel 36:26

I think this started with Celebration Church's first monthly prayer and worship night, Outpost 61.  We always, specifically, pray for two things: Our community and the temperature of our hearts. 

At the second Outpost 61, I couldn't stop singing, 

warm up my heart, God

warm up my heart, God

warm up my heart, God

warm up my heart, God

warm up my heart, God

No matter which song was played, I sang that phrase to its tune. And He started doing it.  And it hurt because I felt. Maybe He finally broke the last piece of stone from my once hardened heart just in time to hear someone speak that phrase. 

IT'S TIME TO LIVE AGAIN. 

All that said, I don't know what to do about it, I don't know anything. feel too weak to stop living in death BUT IT HAS GOT TO STOP; I HAVE TO WAKE UP! 

AWAKE, O SLEEPER, 

AND ARISE FROM THE DEAD,

AND CHRIST WILL SHINE ON YOU

It's ok though, because 2 Cor. 12:9 says that God's strength is perfected, where?  In. My. Weakness. It also says HIS grace is sufficient.  It's enough to wake me up. 

He's the sun shining through the curtains that first makes me stir.  The sun rays that fall on my face that lead me to stretch and yawn before I even realize I am waking up.  

He is our mourning's morning. 

His joy gives us strength to arise. 

It's over, it has to be over. 

Father, help me. 

Help your daughter arise.  

***

Imagining what happens after I rub the sleep from my eyes and look around: 

She arises and as her toes touch the carpet, she sees an open door on the other side of the cottage in which she's been sleeping.

She stands and the blanket falls to the floor. 

She leaves the cottage and walks to the edge of the property where there is a cliff.  She sees all of the safety nets that have been constructed to keep her safe.  She feels confused. 

Then...remembrance. 

She's spent her life constructing safety nets in her sleep.  Then jumping from one to another, but they seem to keep getting further and further apart. It has made her want to quit jumping at all. 

So today she will stop jumping. 

She looks down where she stands to see hedge clippers.  She knows what to do. She carries them to the edge of the cliff and starts the arduous work of cutting down all of those safety nets jutting out from the cliff, that lead to..where?  She doesn't even know...

Sweaty and exhausted but more alive than she's ever been, she makes the final cut as her nightgown whips around her legs. She sees the net ride on the wind for awhile before it disappears into the depths. 

She turns around and looks at the little cottage where she slept for so long. It's not home anymore. It looks unfamiliar.  She lets the clippers fall at her feet, she stretches out her arms, lifts her face to the sun and she lets the wind whip through her hair. 

She laughs without fear of the future.

She is in the moment. 

And she falls.

Free. 

She free-falls backwards off of the cliff, far past where she had once carefully placed safety nets.  She doesn't think, she doesn't wonder when it will end, she just falls in freedom. 

She falls...asleep. 

She wakes up to a peace she's never felt in her entire life. It is pure and it make no sense.  She loves it. She is at once satisfied with it and longs for more of it.  She opens her eyes to see what soft and sturdy surface has caught her. 

Hands. 

"Letting Go"

Artist: Bryn Gillette

Available here: ArtByBryn.com

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