Be Still

Anyone who knows me well, knows that being STILL is not in my character.  I can hardly sit for 5 minutes without my leg starting to anxiously bounce.  Recently my four year old excitedly said to me, "Mommy, look, I can bounce my leg just like you do!"  Great...just what I wanted my daughter to notice and then model!  


It's funny how God repeatedly hones in on our weaknesses, bringing opportunity after opportunity to break us of what haunts us the most.  Actually, I just said that "it's funny".  When I am in the midst of one of His attempts to break me of my inability to be still and know He is my God; to relinquish control, trust Him and cast all of my anxieties and fears upon Him, the last thing I find is humor in it.  Looking back on those times I can laugh, for it never ceases to amaze me at how my Creator really does know me inside and out, so perfectly!  I will focus on those times because looking back gives me strength to trust in the trials of today.


As I mentioned in my previous post, I am a control freak.  I would much rather try and figure out how to do something myself than let anyone do it for me.  I want all of the control, whether that be in the little things (like my obsession with doing the laundry "my way") or the big things like my health, children, or relationships.  Control is my nemesis.  We have a love-hate relationship.  Control keeps me from being still.  Ever.  Yet my God keeps on working on me.  And I know that is out of love for His child.  Out of hating to see those chains that constrict me from being all that I can be in this world.  He is answering my prayers when I cry out to Him to release me from my anxieties and fears.  He whispers to me, and often shouts to me, "Be still and know I am God."


Twelve years ago I had my first 'breaking' when I decided it was time to have a child.  I had suffered from stage 4 endometriosis from the age of 20, having had two surgeries and four years of Lupron shots.  So it came as no surprise to anyone (but me, of course) that my cycles were irregular and pregnancy just was not happening without extra assistance.  This drove me insane.  I obsessively read every thing I could find online about getting pregnant.  If there was a supplement out there, or a fertility diet to be followed, an acupuncturist or chiropractor insisting they could help, I did it.  No baby.  My first IVF cycle I was an anxious mess.  Even on the day of transfer I was far from relaxed.  I remember the doctor actually saying to me, "Relax and just be still."  I laid there willing that embryo to stick, listening to my crazy meditation CD where you visualize pregnancy and talk to the embryo.  I was far from still; far from turning it over to God.  I WAS IN CONTROL!  Or so I thought.  Well, that cycle failed.  Looking back, I can see why.  First off, what would I have learned from that if I had gotten pregnant when I dictated it to happen?!  I would have catapulted myself into a pregnancy with my attitude that I could control it all.  Weight gain, bleeding, stretch marks, labor, you name it.  God, He had other plans.  "....plans to prosper (me) and not to harm (me), plans to give (me) hope and a future."  Jeremiah 29:11


9 and a half years ago I had my first tangible experience with God stilling my soul and allowing me to cast my anxieties upon Him and relinquish control.  I went through that IVF cycle with a peace that I had never experienced.  To this day God was not only answering my prayers, but the prayers of many others, for that was not ME that brought the peace, that's for sure.  I stayed off the internet that entire cycle and prayed every day as I got ready for work, had injections and blood-work and all else that my day would entail.  I can still remember sitting in my little bathroom, blow drying my hair, reading a devotional a friend had given me and marveling at how odd this feeling was; peace.  It was foreign to me and I questioned whether or not I was loosing my mind.  It was so more familiar to me to be anxious all of the time, to busy myself with controlling my life, than to just "let go and let God."  


I did get pregnant that cycle.  And if I hadn't, I actually think I would have been okay with it, because throughout the entire thing, right up until the day of my pregnancy test, I was at peace with allowing it to be in God's hands.  Actually, both my eldest daughter and my son are of that cycle.  Baby number two was my frozen embryo that we conceived two years later (yes, technically speaking, my kids are twins as far as modern science is concerned!).  I wish I could say that from that cycle on, I have been peacefully turning IT ALL over to God.  That I have now mastered "Be[ing] still and know[ing] that I am God."  Psalm 46:10.  


The breaking and making from my Lord has occurred again and again since then.  Sometimes in small ways, like with colic-ally children, broken furnaces, and viruses ruining plans.  And other times, with much more pain and angst entering my world; cancer, loss, death, unemployment.  


Currently, as I write, my husband has been unemployed for a year.  I NEVER thought I would be here, a year later, having more days where I am still than anxious.  I started off this journey a year ago having full blown panic attacks.  But my God loves me and knows me best.  He continues to break me in order to make me the woman He wants me to be.  He stills my soul and reminds me, over and over that He is enough and all I need is to "Be still and know I am God."


With that said, I will now go do my workout, spend the day cleaning out my mother-in-law's house in preparation for her move (for my abilities to NOT be still and move with some maniac speed have been called upon), cook and clean for a party at my home tomorrow night, do 5+ loads of laundry and pass out at some ridiculous hour, I am sure!  But through it all, my soul will remain still today.