As it is, I've been "blogging," if you will, on my FB account for the past months. And now I'll begin sharing those devotionals here on Heart-chords as well. Perhaps I'll write a post catching you all up on my life recently, but for now, I find it best to simply keep writing and sharing what the Lord teaches me.
That said, to launch off again, here's my latest lesson I shared yesterday. A little lesson that the Lord used one of the young men from my church small group- from my group of friends- to reteach me. I'm so thankful for all of the young men- my brothers- that the Lord's put in my life. :)
"Last night (Friday night) was my older sister Christina's wedding. There's so much I could write about. I could share a beautiful narration of it all and of all the emotions I felt. But I've chosen not to this time.
Instead, I wanted to write about one aspect of the behind-the-scenes and the lesson it taught me.
At the bride's request, I had made two slideshows for the wedding reception. One for the First Dance, the other for the Father-Daughter Dance. Problem #1, however, was that the flash drive containing the slideshows was nowhere to be found. Applause for our friend Brett for advising me to bring a spare flash drive. :)
Problem #2 though... there was a little difficulty getting the videos to work. It just wasn't as easy as I had thought it would be.
As one of the maids-of-honor, I was nervous already and then to think of the dance slideshows not working... It made me a little stressed and definitely worried with the special dances less than an hour away. I also worried that I had done something wrong in the format I had saved the videos in.
Our sound tech/DJ was a young man from our church. I count him as one of the most intelligent people I know. I had absolutely no reason to worry. But it wasn't until I checked with him again after the bridal party pictures that I finally realized that.
I was anxious and a nervous mess. But his level-headedness and cool, calm, collected demeanor helped me take a deep breath, find my balance again, and take the furrow of anxiety off of my brow. His gentleness and sensitiveness in assuring me I had done nothing wrong in my part of making the slideshows helped me feel intelligent again and stop being so hard on myself. But most of all, watching him work reminded me that I had nothing to worry about. I had passed along my responsibility for the slideshows and I was reminded that he was more than capable of carrying that responsibility for me then so that I could rest easy, spend time with my family, and do what maids-of-honor do on the wedding day. I realized that he would do everything in his power to make those slideshows happen. I just needed to step back, have confidence in his ability, and simply trust.
As I was home in the quiet of my bedroom later, I reflected on the evening and I thought of the slideshows. My anxiety over them reminded me much of myself sometimes with the Lord.
Too often I think we struggle to let go of things. I know I do. We like to be in control, to be responsible for our lives. It's a safe place, relying only on yourself. And even when we surrender our control of situations in our lives, too often we end up taking back that control we just surrendered to the Lord. Too often we pick that responsibility right back up. It isn't always that we doubt the Lord's capability or His knowledge. Sometimes we just struggle to let go.
And as I learned, when we try to carry responsibility and bear control that we were never meant to carry, we get stressed. We get anxious and worried. It weighs heavily on the back of our minds.
There are situations in life that we were never meant to figure out and be responsible for. Because otherwise, there would be no need for trusting God. As a reminder to myself, when we surrender our responsibility and our control to the Lord, we really need to learn to leave it surrendered in His capable hands. He calms our anxious minds, gently assures us that we've done our part already, and silently reminds us that it's safe to let go of our control. He wants to carry the responsibilities that we too often fret over. It's never His intention for us to live stressful lives. To be always worried and anxious. No, He wants us to let Him shoulder the pressures and responsibilities and to go off and live life to the fullest as He intended for us to. To be free to laugh, to love on others, to dance, to live in joy. Not with anxious minds weighed heavily with cares. If only we'll choose to have confidence in Him and to learn to trust Him enough to relinquish our control. Whatever the situation is... He's got this. :)
And... yes, the wedding slideshow worked. ;)"
In light of this reminder to trust Him, these two quotes popped up in my Facebook newsfeed today. I think I get the point. Lol.
Be blessed, friends, and never forget to trust Him! <3
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