Letting Go is a Leap of Faith

As you may know, I am currently taking a medical leave of absence from school. I came home a few days after Halloween after realizing that I was in a bad place and in need of more help than I could get while being a full time student.

It wasn't an easy realization.

Actually, it was the hardest thing I've ever had to admit myself: that I couldn't hold on any longer.

I had to let go.

I had to let go of my pride that said I was too good to admit this weakness. I had to let go of my expectations for myself. I had to let go of my fears about what my family and friends would say.

Stop holding on and just be held.

 It took me a long time to realize that letting go and taking a break from school was not weak. It was not cowardly. It was not taking the easy way out.

It was taking a leap of faith. When I let go... I was putting the next few months completely into God's hands. I was going home to an uncomfortable situation, leaving all my friends, and entering into intensive treatment. And I had to trust that God wanted me to be back in Connecticut at this specific part of my life.

And so I packed up my dorm and went back to Connecticut. I started in an Intensive Outpatient Therapy program at Yale Hospital, where I went four days a week for over three hours a day. I made medication changes.

And for the first time in a year, I feel like Katie again.

I'm still a work in progress, and to be honest, my faith has taken the back burner to my mental health treatment right now.

But that's okay. God has never left my side. Right now I'm not able to give Him the worship He is due. My worship and prayer and faith is imperfect. But it is made perfect in Him.

Friends, I still wonder what life would have been like if I stayed at the Mount this semester. If I had just held on a little bit longer.

The what ifs don't matter. It's the what IS that matters.

If there's something you're holding onto that you know you need to let go of, let it go. God will never forsake you.

The song I've really been praying with since coming home is Create in Me by Rend Collective. I first heard it at a retreat I was volunteering at, and when I heard the following lyrics, I sobbed with joy, with gratitude, because God has so much more in store for me.

Create in me a miracle, something real and something beautiful. 

You're not finished with me yet. 

By your power I can change, I can change. 

You're not finished with me yet. 

God makes all things new. He takes the gross and yucky and transforms them into the most beautiful things.

He's working on you and me, too.

Let go, and let Him work within you.