Letting Go!

I've been holding on so tight
Look at these knuckles
They've gone white
I'm fighting for who I wanna be
I'm just trying to find security

But You say let it go, You say let it go
You say life is waiting for the one's who lose control
You say you will be, everything I need
You said if I lose my life it's then I'll find my soul
You say let it go.

Well it's hard enough to hear 
Harder still, to move beyond this fear
We know there's nothing I can bring,
So tell me what do you want from me?


What do I love? What do I hate?
What will I lose? What will I gain?
How do I save my soul?
What if I bend? What if I break?
What will it cost? What will it take?
For you to save my soul.

You say let it go, You say let it go
You say life is waiting for the one's who lose control
You say You will be, everything I need
You said if I lose my life it's then I'll find my soul

-Tenth Avenue North

There's a story that goes with these lyrics, and it begins on January 5, 2010. I don't remember the exact situation, only that I was stressing out about my upcoming trip to Haiti. I heard these lyrics on the radio, and had to pull into the parking lot at the Scotiabank to cry. This song was God telling me, five days before changing my life, that He was going to take care of me. Those words were His promise to me that I would find what I was looking for, and that He would become my everything.

He kept His promise during those 17 days in more ways than I can count, and more ways than I even have words for.

The reality is, I came back. While parts of me will never be the same, I, in so many ways, became the exact same Jessica I had been before leaving. I was scared when my safe, comfortable world didn't like the 'new' Jessica. I was broken when the rest of the world didn't care. I hardened because I wasn't forced to wake up every morning in a place where God would challenge me to rely on His provision, and His grace, and His love.

In short, I forgot His faithfulness.

I heard this song again tonight and something struck me. I'm still clutching things so close that my knuckles are white. I still haven't fully handed myself over to the One who created me down to the most intricate of details. I still haven't let it go.

In those seventeen days I spent in that breathtaking, broken country, I was broken down into letting go. I couldn't do anything but let go! Evidence of God was EVERYWHERE. It was in the hands that were raised to praise Him under sheets. It was in the voices of the nannies the night of the quake. It was in the tiny hands that touched my cheeks and the big eyes that captured my heart. It was in the fact that the streetlights in Petionville were out, and the only 'light' in the night was GOD making Himself known through the clearest, starriest sky. It was in a million little ways where we said "We're almost out of-" and then God filled the need, whether it was through a Minnesota farmer who flew to the DR to drive supplies over the border, or a whole hoard of Dutch Marines. God gently pried my hands off MY plans and took over. His plans were good!

How did I forget this faithfulness?

Tonight, I realize that Haiti was preparing me for this moment - a moment where not only am I brought to my knees in believing, but the fact that I choose to want to let go because I know what He has is so immeasurably more than I could ever imagine. It is so far beyond what my tiny imagination could generate.

Here's to white knuckles becoming open palms, raised in reckless abandon, losing myself but gaining all that Christ is offering!!

Here's to a freedom wrapped in faithfulness.

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ!
- Philippians 3:7-8

Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because whoever suffers in the body is done with sin.  As a result, they do not live the rest of their earthly lives for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God.
1 Peter 4:1-2