Joyful Acceptance

If you read my previous post, The Faith-Fueled Journey then you know that I am going to talk further about the first of five lessons that Much-Afraid learned in Hannah Hurnard’s book titled Hinds’ Feet on High Places.

The first lesson that Much-Afraid (renamed Grace and Glory at the end of the story) learned was ” to accept all that has been done to her (in the past) and lay down her own will.” Let’s dig into this a little bit. Trust me, when I tell you it’s going to get a little deep because I will be sharing my own story and what led me to a deeper understanding of what this lesson means. This is only my interpretation. Your interpretation may be different than mine and that is okay.

So, at this moment in time, I had just recently turned 51. However, when I was approaching 50, I had begun to realize that it was such a milestone that it made me stop and think, “Hey, I’m getting close to being half of a century old! Holy cow!!!” That statement certainly can lead to some reevaluations of where you are in life. Yet, my story actually starts about 3 years before I turned 50. I had been a Special Education Teacher for 12 years at that time but started to feel “blah” (for a lack of a better word). The job just was starting to not be as much fun anymore. It’s somewhat deeper than that, but the main problem that I had had was I had assumed that I was going to continue with that job until I retired. So then 3 years later, I was still in the same predicament, essentially ignoring what I was feeling and trudging along. Then I switched schools and let’s just say, in a nice way, that the leadership there left a lot to be desired when it came to wanting to continue to work, period! Then I began to feel that God had a different plan in place for me, entirely. He had a different path that He wanted me to take. Boy was I scared! But when you’re miserable, it becomes very easy to jump off into the abyss and then hope that you can swim. It was actually, very much, like a leap of faith. I couldn’t change how some people had treated me so I had to learn to accept that, then I had to lay down my own will in order to follow the path that God had set for me. The joy has come in finding out that I am so much happier now than when I was doing what I thought that He wanted me to do for the rest of my life (or at least until I retired!).

We all have times in our lives when we need to let go of the pain of something or of what someone has done to us. If we don’t let it go then it just becomes an anchor that will continue to weigh us down. When we learn to cut those chains then we have learned to give our will over to a God who loves us and wants for us to be joyful in the span of our life on earth.

So, what did I learn from this? I’m not always joyful nor am I always accepting of what God wants from me. Yet, I know that He loves me regardless and I just had to have a deeper faith and trust in His path for me than I did before. God will knock on the door, but He won’t come in until we open it. I’ve always been a religious person, but once I opened that door more fully than ever before, then I’ve discovered that I have become so much better and happier with who I am and who He wants me to become. I closed my eyes and took that leap of faith and what a story that it has started to become! Actually, there is so much more to my story that I haven’t even shared yet! We’ll get to it, though…..eventually.

What can you gain from this? If you are struggling with something then I encourage you to find someone, anyone to talk to. Go get counseling in whatever form that works for you. That helped me, too and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. However, I also encourage you to open that door by getting on your knees and praying to God. He’s just waiting for you to understand that you need Him just as much as He wants and desires your love and respect, too. He’s just waiting for you to be ready to receive Him.