“Then God said, ‘Take your son, your only son, whom you love– Isaac– and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on the mountain I will show you.’” (Genesis 22:2, NIV)
I thought I was doing good by holding this one area in my life with open hands. Yes, that’s how I prayed about it too: Here, God. It’s yours, not mine, so I bring it to you with open hands. That prayer seemed to keep my anxious thoughts at bay for a little while, until it didn’t work anymore.
While working the Freedom conference at my church this spring (2019), I was thankful to be on the intercessor team where I could pray, focus, and worship. Although I bathed the red team (prayer team) in prayer, God was doing His own work in my heart over a man I had fallen in love with, yet couldn’t find real rest about him or the relationship. We were two very different people, opposites in more ways than not; we had both been hurt badly in our past marriage and dating relationships. Instead of drawing on those things to strengthen our relationship, it inevitably seemed to be tearing us apart. We were both very leery of trusting one another. I felt I was at a crossroads with it all. I couldn’t go on like this anymore, and I felt he couldn’t either. Neither of us wanted to call it quits, so our relationship coasted on little to no communication. The current state of the relationship was eating at me on the inside. My heart was broken.
As I circled the room in prayer, God spoke to me: You’ve kept your hands open with him, but you need to lay him down. I was not expecting this word quite honestly. I was hoping for a quick-fix answer, a solution to the current state of our relationship. I felt dismay. I could only understand God’s command in one way only: I needed to let him go by placing him, my heart for him, at the foot of the cross. Everything in my flesh cried out to clinch him in those opened hands and tell God, “No!” But I knew there was no use in fighting God. I wouldn’t get what I wanted or rather what God wanted for me if I disobediently rebelled in the opposite direction of His instructions.
During lunch break on the last day of the conference, I opened up to a friend who was working the conference with me. As I presented my case, she agreed that there seemed to be no use holding onto the relationship in its current state, one where God seemed to be speaking release.
The Freedom conference resumed after lunch, and the next topic presented was on despair and the feeling of hopelessness. My friend, whom I had just shared my story, was sitting next to me. We looked at each other, knowing the message was as much for me as the participants of the conference. As participants were called forth for prayer, my spirit did a nose dive, and my upper body burrowed into my friend’s arms. I poured my heart out to her this time without holding back any of my feelings. The despair and hopelessness wasn’t just over the man I loved. I’d hit another dead end, something that felt like a common thread throughout my life in the past decade. Quite frankly, I was tired of it and expressed those feelings. I was beyond frustrated. Tears streamed down my face while we both prayed over the situation. As my friend finished her prayer over me, she spoke to my clasped hope: “You will have to let it go, and I know it feels like there is no hope, but with Jesus, there is always hope.” Her words brought a spirit-infused hope to my soul.
Her prayer and her words of encouragement sealed it. Like a burnt offering, I had “sacrificed” him entirely on the altar– the whole: I laid him down. I laid down my wanting heart– my strong, stubborn will to have him, and I laid down all my dreams of a future I had conjured up in my mind with him.
Through the piercing pain of heartache, I was thankful I had met him. I didn’t regret one moment with him. I didn’t even regret the pain of having to let him go. It was a test that would become a part of my testimony. Although I knew I loved him very much, I knew I loved Jesus more. The sacrifice was a tribute to the God I love. Though it wasn’t easy, it was necessary.
I believe God is still writing this story. He has shown me so much as I have continued to obey His word to let go of something my heart longed to control. I believe this principle is at work here: “Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you’ll have it forever, real and eternal” (John 12:24-25, MSG).
And that is the hope. It’s the sacrifice, death, and resurrection of something that has to die so that something greater will be.
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash
O Melanie! Thank you so much for sharing this with us and being as transparent as you were. I recently also went through something very similar. This has encouraged and comforted me that we are not at all alone in our struggles. Not only do we have each other to lean on, but also Christ who suffered so much more than we do. Thank you again for being vulnerable enough to display your heart’s pain so that we can have the hope of a future with the one that is right for us and as always Jesus, the lover of our souls.