letting go...{day 23}

it's in the last few days leading up to the busyness of the coming season that we've been talking a lot about what it means to die to ourselves.  he and i, we aren't naive anymore about the tactics that satan takes to destroy families and marriages and friendships and testimonies.

no, we have walked through those waters.


so, it was when i came across this post that i started digging a bit deeper and began to focus on what all i needed to let go of...

Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.

Colossians 3:5-10 ESV

...before i could be filled up with all that is from Him and Him alone.

and we get up early yesterday morning while it is still dark and little ones are buckled in while still wrapped up in blankies and jammies and sleep. and we drive through the mountains and a bit of snow and clouds and green and we talk quiet and we pray and we focus on Jesus, because only He can take what we so desperately need to let go of.

and we arrive and walk into warmth and we sit back in couches and watch football and we visit and cousins get reacquainted and daddies get sleepy and obscene amounts of pie get consumed and it's relaxed. and the ones who are missing are missed, but it feels a bit different this year, somehow.

but it's as we leave, as we wrap arms around each other and say our goodbyes and i love yous that one by one, the women who are part of this family i married into, they place their hands on my belly to feel this baby move...

 i looked down in that moment, and i'll never forget the overlapping of hands and fingers over my filling.  a silent blessing over this little one who tumbles in my dark. 

because those few minutes, where we all held our breath waiting to feel her, i felt Him move...when we reach out, with hands emptied out, Jesus fills us with life.


and i am thankful.