I love being pregnant but one of the things that I haven’t totally adjusted to is me getting bigger and my clothes getting smaller. This weekend I was getting dressed to go out and I saw one of my old denim dresses hanging in the closet. Immediately, I took it off the hanger to put it on and my husband, in the kindness way possible said, “That’s going to be too tight on you. You can’t fit that.” However, as a good wife, determined to prove her husband wrong, I tried the dress on anyway! I forced each button closed to prove my point. I said, “See, I can fit this! It’s not too tight!” He didn’t say a word but he watched me as I took a good look at myself in the mirror. What I saw was that the dress I used to wear, because God had changed my situation, didn’t fit me anymore. The buttons were barely closed and Lord knows if I sat down for an extended period of time, they all would have definitely popped off!
God showed me clearly in that moment that what I was trying to do was force something to fit in my life, that no longer did. He had elevated me, blessed me and changed my situation and here I was trying to force this thing from my past into my present. Isaiah 43:18-19 says, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a new way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland” (NIV).
The message for me was clear – If we have to force it, we need to let it go. Relationships, friendships, lifestyles, jobs, old clothes, old habits – if they don’t fit, don’t force them to. Forget what used to be and embrace what is. We have to allow God to bless us with some new things that will not only fit our present situation but still give us room to grow:) One of the lessons I’ve learned is that sometimes we have to let go of what’s killing us, even if it’s killing us to let it go.
