Hello-Goodye
- Jill Miller
- Apr 13, 2016
- 3 min read
Hello-Goodbye
Blog – 4-13-16
I spent the last two weekends speaking at two different women’s retreats. I came home from each of them exhausted but incredibly touched by the beautiful women I met. So many of them shared their personal stories with me, stories of pain, stories of struggle, stories of triumph, and stories of God moving in their lives. I cherish each story shared with me by my sweet sisters in Christ.
At the retreat we talked about getting real with ourselves, with God, and with others. Part of the process of getting real with ourselves involves digging deep into our own stories and finding the underlying issues, the unconscious things that drive our behavior.
We have all heard the saying, “Let go and Let God,” but the problem with that is sometimes we truly don’t know what we have to let go of. Sometimes we have buried things so deep that we don’t even know they exist any more. An inside look is necessary so we can find those hurts, lost dreams, shattered innocence, or whatever barrier is keeping us from experiencing true freedom in Christ. We have to recognize those deeper issues and name them so we can let them go.
We have to say hello so we can say goodbye! click to tweet Our hearts and minds go to elaborate measures to hide and avoid the hurts and frustrations of life. Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The human heart is the most deceitful of all things and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is.” Wow! Hard words to read, aren’t they, but I believe in part it’s talking about the elaborate measures our hearts and minds go to to bury things. Who wants to feel bad, right? I’ll just bury it down deep, put on my mask, and nobody gets hurt!
Saying hello to those hurts, naming them and dealing with them, is painful, but it’s a necessary first step to letting go. Saying hello gives us the opportunity to say goodbye once and for all. We may need to engage the help of a counselor, a close friend, our pastor, our small group, or a life coach to help us do that, but it will be worth the effort. Saying goodbye and getting rid of our junk leaves more room for God’s love and grace.
It’s kind of like cleaning out your closet (something I need to do badly!). I’m always amazed at what I find when I do that. Things I had forgotten all about. Shirts I bought because they were “on sale” that never made it off my hangar. Shoes that I never wear because they hurt my feet but I’ve kept “just in case.” Pants that I will never fit into again. Things I need to get rid of.
Some of you reading this I know are thinking, Girl, digging deep and cleaning things out doesn’t sound like fun at all. No way I’m doing that. I don’t want to go digging through the junk of my past. I hear you, my friend. It’s not fun. It’s hard work. It’s painful.
But it’s worth it.
The great scientist Carl Jung said, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and your will call it fate.” In other words:
What we are aware of we control – What we are not aware of controls us! click to tweet We’ve all seen people who do the same thing over and over in life expecting a different result. Bottom line, their results aren’t going to change until their behavior changes. And their behavior won’t change until they discover what is driving their behavior.
I encourage you, if you keep finding yourself in the same situation, facing the same type of disappointment over and over again, maybe it’s time to try something different. Maybe it’s time to dig deep, discover the real issues that are driving your behavior, deal with them, clean out your closet, and tell them good riddance!
Say hello so you can say goodbye!
Hugs and love,
~Jill
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