Giving Up

My pot has been about to boil over for a while now. Full-time custody of three kids very suddenly has sent Husband and I into a tailspin and knocking on the email doors of many friends, asking for advice and help.

Yesterday, it just became too much. The many ways in which I have lost my different identities - woman, writer, wife - and the identity which has become convoluted - stepmother - have turned me round and round until ashes, ashes, I have fallen down.

I've fallen.

And so I asked my work for a mental health day today. And, kindly, they agreed.


I was listening to Matthew West's song, "Strong Enough:"


"I know I'm not strong enough
to be everything that I'm supposed to be
I give up
I'm not stong enough..."

And I realized it. I give up. Yes, I give up. I wanted to scream it out my window: I GIVE UP!!!!
  
But in listening to West's song, I realized it wasn't that I was giving up and waving the white flag and leaving it at that. Instead, I was giving up on trying to control the situation....and giving it to God.

We hear that phrase a lot, don't we? It's become a kind of cliche: Give it to God. In our culture, we think that means just letting go and letting your worries drift into nothingness. 

But we who believe in God know better. And even those of us who believe in God, but who suffer and need reminding, must know: we may give up, we may release the burden...but in giving up we hold on to the One who can take it all on. The only One who can handle it all: yep, you guessed it. God. 

So Lord, I know I'm not strong enough to be all these identities on my own. I'm not strong enough to handle three unique children each going through their own emotional growing pains. I'm not strong enough to handle trouble in my marriage due to stress, lack of time together, etc. 

I just can't do it, Lord. 

If you give up, do you think that's a failure? Do you feel bad? Do you feel less of a person?

Don't. If you give up...and give over...and hold onto Him who can carry it all for you...

"For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."  
Matthew 11:30 

...you will find life all the more sweeter to live. I try to control so much. I try to make the kids not have temper tantrums; I try to make traffic run easier; I try to control Husband's moods....

I give up, Lord, and I give it to You. For you can make all things new. 

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!"
2 Corinthians 5:17 

Only You can make me be what You call me to be, Lord. 

I bow before you. I look upward instead of inward.   

May you release the tight clutch you have on life and in opening your palm, may you see butterflies flitting up to Heaven.