Late To the Party

Yes, I joined Facebook in 2013.  I showed up late to the party and this post will hopefully explain where I’ve been.  While everyone else was talking about the newest, biggest thing, I was in no mood to party.  I was mourning the loss of this perfect little plan that I had worked so, so hard to create.  About six years ago, God grabbed the plan I had scripted and began to revise it.  When His red correcting pen touched my life, I was not too happy.  In fact, when I looked at the marks He was making, I got angry.  He began to add parts I did not wish to include.  He crossed out parts that I was sure were necessary to my happiness.

And so began this journey with Jesus- a journey that brought me through the anger, through the pain, through the waiting, loss and grief to a place of peace and a place of freedom with a whole new identity.  When I uttered a teeny tiny little prayer, I had no idea that it had the power to change my life so drastically.  I was in a place of desperation, and I felt completely alone.  I have been talking to Jesus since I was a little girl, but it wasn’t until I hit the lowest point of my entire life that I told Him I was done trying to do it without Him.  I loved Him, but I had never trusted Him enough to give Him every single part of my life.  I had gripped that well written plan so tightly that He had to lift my fingers off of it, one by one, and it took some time! 

I decided to trust that He was not destroying my plan with all those red marks but instead He was making it better.  Slowly, I would hand over every part of my life to Him to use as He pleased.  This journey with Jesus was so much more than a freedom walk.  I began to realize that never before had I really seen myself the way He sees me.  He began to show me in amazing and crazy ways who I was… in Him.  I felt like a new person, like I had been given a new name, but I was still Kelly.  About six weeks ago, it finally made sense to me.  I had not been given a new name, but I had been given new eyes to see who God had named me thirty two years ago, on the day I was born. 

So many times throughout this journey I’ve prayed, asking Him if I was ready to go to the party.  And for so long, His reply has been, “Child, that won’t be good for you.”  After getting the same response over and over again, I figured that He meant it would never be good for me.  He knows me and all the insecurity I’ve been hauling around with me for way too long, so when He said “no,” I said “ok.”  God intentionally kept me from it so that I would trust what He was doing in my life, instead of being so caught up in what He was doing in everyone else’s lives. 

The thing I love about our God is that we will never come to place in life where we figure Him out… not ever!  And so, to answer the question that everyone is asking me:  I came late to the party because my Daddy said I was finally ready to go.  I know some people will read this and think, “She just waited until she got her life together.”  To which I chuckle and say, “Hardly.  There is nothing together about my life.  I’ve just figured out Who holds my life together, and it is a daily decision to put my life in His hands.”