Last year was without a doubt one of the most difficult seasons that I have ever experienced in my entire.
I began the year with big expectations and big plans, but I soon realized that God had a very different idea of how 2014 would go.
After a devastating break up with my long-term boyfriend, I felt as if my life had ended; except I did not die. I wish I could describe everything I felt as I watched my whole world break and shatter into a million pieces, and all the while I was powerless to salvage even the smallest piece of it.
It wasn’t long before I was on my knees begging God for answers. I could not have known it then, but there was a lot of good in my being weak and powerless; it brought me to the end of myself.
After all of my struggling and strategizing, God brought me to my knees. By living that way, there was far too much of me and not nearly enough of Him, and I needed to understand that. I had stopped believing in myself and the all of the gifts and abilities that God had given me. My identity – the very person He created me to be – was lost!
I saw the life I had wanted and I went about every way I knew how in order to create it, but when none of it worked, I learned one of the greatest lessons one can ever learn: my life was never mine to “create” in the first place – not if I wanted God to be at the center of it all.
Before the creation of this world, God had a purpose for me and my life. And the only I way I would ever discover it would be to seek Him and He would reveal what that purpose is. If anyone needed a lesson in submission it was definitely me. Lesson learned!
Lean on, trust in, and be confident in the Lord with all your heart and mind and do not rely on your own insight or understanding. In all your ways know, recognize, and acknowledge Him and He will direct and make straight and plain your paths. (Proverbs 3:5-6 AMP)
When we surrender everything to God, He can and will mold us into the women He created us to be; do what he created us to do, so we can have everything He intended for us in this life.
Although 2014 was certainly a year I would never enjoy reliving, I learned so many great lessons in that season of my life that I truly believe I would not have learned so well in any other way.
Maybe you are also experiencing a difficult season in your life, and maybe you feel like your dreams for the future are shattering, but know that it might really be God asking you to submit to His plan for your life and allow Him to write you a beautiful life story.
I declared 2015 to be my year to blossom and flourish into the women He planned for me to be, and sister, I challenge you to do the same. It’s not too late!