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.

Like My Mother Does

image via www.cassiepeasedesigns.com

Yesterday was the Feast of the Annunciation, the day that a fourteen year old girl said yes to God and literally saved the world.

When I was fourteen, I didn't even have the ability to sit through a guitar lesson.

But, wow, how beautiful is it that our Momma, without knowing what would come out of it, said 'yes' to bearing God's son?

What if she had said no? What if she had anxiety over how this baby would change her plans? She was supposed to marry Joseph and live a quiet life, and know suddenly she was to be pregnant, and unwed? It was almost a death sentence!

But she said yes. And thank the Lord she did, because she helped save humanity.

That is what we're all called to. To trust God so much, that we say yes, not knowing what that yes leads to. Our heavenly mother is an example of our potential.

God loves us so much that He gave us the ability to say no to His plans. But imagine the beauty that could come from our humble acceptance of His will!

I'm praying for you, that you see the beauty in God's plan for your life, and ask that you pray for me, that I understand the same.