Letting Go

For the last 6 business days I have been STRESSED. It’s a rarity that I experience high levels of stress. I can think of 2 events in my life that physically affected me because of the level of stress I was under. But generally speaking I don’t get stressed. I love to relax and rest and have down time and I’m pretty intentional about incorporating the aforementioned items in my life. Even if I’m not, God is. He always includes seasons of rest in my life, whether I want them or not :-). But usually there will follow a season of intensity after His rest. These 6 days have definitely been intense and I learned a lot through them.

I’ve been given a new job assignment at work and it has been very challenging. I can’t even remember the last time I’ve been this challenged. Well, yes I can…undergrad. Undergrad challenged me in this way and my grades showed it :-(. On top of my new job assignment, which I’m still training on, I was covering for two employees all week. So in a sense I was doing 3x’s my normal work load in addition to my new job responsibility that I’m still training on. I literally felt like a one-woman-show. It wasn’t until I shared this experience with another coworker and she volunteered to help me out that I realized I didn’t have to be. You know, a one-woman-show. And maybe, just maybe, God hadn’t intended for me to be. But I took it upon myself to be self-sufficient and independent, and all those other adjectives that keep us from humbly depending on others. And the Lord. The result? STRESS. I was stressed out. So much so that I couldn’t interact socially with anyone. I felt that any ounce of outside interaction would deplete the little energy I had to remain focused on the projects I was juggling.  I had nothing to give.

Every month for the past 5 months, I’ve dreaded the new job I’m doing because of fear that I will fail. This time around, I saw the root of the fear and insecurity I was experiencing and it was pride. Pride said “you must do well, or they will think you’re stupid”. In that lie I saw that I was trying to base my value and my intelligence on my performance. I even felt that I was letting God down because I knew He had opened this door of opportunity for me. I knew in my head that was a silly thought, I mean how can we let Someone down who already knows the end result? But my heart could not seem to shake the feeling.

Finally today, I asked Him “Lord, what is YOUR agenda for me and this new role? What do YOU want me to get out of this?” I realized I had to let go of what I wanted to get from this opportunity, which would be an increase of some sort and also to complete the project on my own successfully. But what if that wasn’t God’s plan? What if I was never successful at learning what I was supposed to learn? I had to let go of my own expectations and surrender to His. I reminded myself that even if His outcome was not the one I wanted, it would be for my own best interest and that truth helped me to relinquish the burden I was carrying to be “perfect”. To be “intelligent”. To be “successful”.  And something changed in me. I could feel it. And you know what? After I had this little talk with Him and I proceeded to continue working on this new task, I was able to complete my project. And I couldn’t help but worship Him.

SHALOM