It's Okay

"It's okay."

Finally, I could say it and mean it: "God, it's okay."

It's okay that things did not work how I thought that they would. It's okay that I do not have answers to all of the questions. It's okay that my expectations were not met. It's okay that some things were swept away before I wanted them to be.

God did not need me to tell Him it was okay, but I needed to tell Him it was okay.

The unsettled frustrations, the questions, the emotional roller coaster, and the constant battle against the lies were laid to rest with the notion of "it's okay."

I had been handed far more than I ever thought I could handle. Some days I was sure that there was no way I could make it through one more ounce of bad news or one more difficult conversation. My trust in the Lord wavered with my feeling of the day.

But in finally admitting to God that it was okay, that I was okay, and that I was going to continue to be okay, I finally believed it. 

The lie that God was mad at me and was punishing me was laid in the grave. The truth was painted on the inner most part of my soul: the Lord is the great I AM and the great I AM is faithful.

"Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments." Deuteronomy 7:9 

The Lord remains faithful to His covenant and to the promises that He has made. God never promises to remain faithful to expectations that we put on Him on our own. 

In Exodus 4 the Lord asks Moses what he is holding in his hand. Obviously the Lord knew what Moses had in his hand, but He asked Moses for the benefit of Moses. Once Moses recognized to the Lord the staff that he was holding on to, the Lord promptly told him to throw the staff on the ground. Once on the ground, the staff came to life as a snake and the Lord guided Moses through picking the snake up as it became a staff once more. The Lord explained that His purpose was so that people would believe.

The Lord has been asking me over the past few months: What are you holding onto in your hands and in your head? What beliefs and expectations are you clinging to as if they are truth? 

And when I finally said to the Lord that "it is okay," I laid down all that I had been holding onto. All of my unmet expectations and frustrations were laid before the Lord, and I really was okay. The Lord had remained faithful to who He is: a loving God who is sovereign, powerful, and works all things for my good. And I stood confident before the Lord, thankful for who He is and who He has made me.