It’s Inside of You

What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

I made the mistake thinking I couldn’t survive on my own. I thought what I needed was someone to take care of me. To guide me. To do for me. I depended heavily on him. After all, he was faster and stronger and knew so much. But God wanted to show me what I didn’t know was inside of me the entire time. 

It started as a moment of pain. A moment of suffering. He died suddenly and I was alone. I had friends and family but alone in the sense that the person, my husband, who was my world was gone and I now needed to cope and make the decisions. I had to figure things out on my own. I had to plan on my own. Where would I begin? I had been with him for years. I had accepted the role of supporter. I lived in it happily and made plans. This was my life and my future. But God saw the truth because he created the truth. 

There's nothing like being thrown into the fire to find out you can survive the flames and jump out.

It wasn’t a smooth transition. Of course I was mad. I fought back. I was confused. I went through the stages. Why was everything upside down? I wanted to hold on to the past for as long as I could. But that was not healthy. Especially when two children were depending on you. Fear wanted to hold on the hardest. It told me to stay in bed and give up. It told me I would not make it. I had to push past it and fight. It wasn’t easy. It usually isn’t. It was a ‘focus on one step in front of you’ moment. But before I knew it I was doing it. I was handling it. I was taking care of things. I was planning things. I was doing something. I was discovering that which was in me that I didn’t even know I had. 

We can hold on to something so tightly because we don’t know what is within us. We hold on to that job because we don’t believe we can run our own business. We hold on to that terrible relationship because we don’t believe anyone else out there will see beauty in us. Instead, how about we hold on to what God is saying. He has or is putting us on a journey to find that fire inside of us. It’s always been there, it’s now time to unveil it. Because it’s bigger than the fire out there. Never let your mind limit what God has placed in you. He has placed something huge and beautiful and amazing in you. We don’t see it but we just have to trust him and go where he guides us.