Will you let go in order to let God?

“The degree to which you yield to Him impacts the work He will accomplish through you and the changes He’ll affect in your life”, Dr. Charles Stanley.   For the first time it was clear to me this morning, I have completely let go.  Let go of my desires, my wants, my wishes…. and have let God have full run of my life.  Well, I can guarantee that something will pop up every now and then to prove me wrong, but for now I’d like to think I’ve been successful.   As I sat this week in 2 different “Faithfully Fit” classes and listened to the women talk about their struggles, the frustration of life in regards to their weight… I realized how far I have come.  How have I gotten to this point? I let go.  I prayed that God would take my desires and replace them with His, that He would give me peace in allowing Him to have full rule of my life.  Don’t get me wrong, there are certainly issues that come up daily but I have this overwhelming sense of peace in regards to my health.  For the first time in my life I am not ruled by an eating disorder, whether it be Anorexia, Bulimia, or emotional eating.  I eat to live, not live to eat.  I run to God now when I am sad, anxious, stressed, happy, frustrated, excited…whatever the emotion- I run to the Lord first now, not food.

I pleaded with the Lord for years to remove this “thorn”. No matter what I did, everything always came back to a food struggle, a weight struggle. I thought I was just destined to fight this battle for my entire life.  Things didn’t change until I realized what I could do with that struggle.  I wasn’t alone, there are so many women that struggle with the same thing…the feelings of shame, of worthlessness, of never being able to get it together.  When I finally let go and learned how God could be the one thing that filled all of those voids I had, I finally began to see my struggle for what it was.  My “thorn” is the very thing that brought me to a closer relationship with God.  Had I not had this struggle I wouldn’t need Him so desperately.

I decided to start this blog last year and after weeks of praying about a name I settled on a verse in 2 Corinthians 12:10~ “My power is made perfect in your weakness.” Thus the blog name “His Power Made Perfect”…feeling that it was only through His power that I would be made whole.  After returning from a conference in NC this summer (She Speaks – with Proverbs 31) I felt that I wanted something a little more simple, something easier to direct people to, and I had really been stuck on the word “Grace”.  As I searched for verses with the word Grace, “His grace is sufficient for me” kept coming into my head.  I decided on “Simply By Grace”…because it is simply by Gods grace that I am where I am today.  The definition of Grace in regards to a Christian perspective is unmerited favor…it is a gift.  There is nothing that I can do to deserve it- God loves us so much that He freely gives it to us.  As I went to write the verse down on my blog I hadn’t even put two and two together… “But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Can I get an “Amen”???? How did I miss that??? Of course His power is made perfect in my weakness- it is His grace that covers me.

It gets better.  Remember the darn “thorn” I prayed about God removing for so many years? The one I finally have been able to thank Him for? Well, I just searched for that verse, obviously not  having to look very far.

Again- God blows me away:

2 Cor. 12:7-10…Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” 

I’m just going to end on that today- still trying to soak up the fact that God has literally used this thorn to bring me to where I am today.  To the women I am able to work with and speak His truths to- praise Jesus for my struggles! I wouldn’t change a thing- He knew exactly what He was doing when He allowed my thorn to appear.  When I think of thorns, instead of thinking about something prickly and painful, I see a rose now.  I’m so grateful God has changed my whole perspective.