I wake early, as usual, dwelling already on the things that need improvement or that cause me worry.

“A mind staid on the Lord is joy and peace.”

So, how to get there when the mistakes of yesterday and the worries of today or tomorrow’s potential mistakes crowd in and muffle, distort, oppress, crowd out the present peace and current joy?

In this moment, I’m writing, waiting for my tea to cool.  The house is quiet for about another hour, yet worry churns inside, a voice humming constant in the background.  I feel it in my body in the solar plexus region.  Today it radiates slow up into my chest, down into my gut.

I pause to feel and give space for my skittish soul to come out to say whatever it needs to say:

“It’s going to be all my fault if/when things go wrong.  There’s something you/we/I could’ve done to prevent it if only you’d been more attentive and thought through every possible scenario from all angles before making a decision.”

Huh.  It definitely pays to stop and be curious about these sensations in my body.  In the past, I’ve blown right past them, but this has been helpful information.

I apparently feel responsible to control the outcome of every single one of my decisions.  And not only that, I must be completely informed of every potential possibility.

Exhausting and definitely anxiety producing.

Sure, my actions have repercussions, some positive and some negative, but I can’t be completely informed and I can’t control the outcome. Would I really want to?  No!  I’m too small minded as to what I can imagine being the outcome of my decisions and actions. I am not God.

Even things perceived as mistakes in the moment often have better outcomes than the best scenarios I can imagine.

Anytime I try to play God and determine in advance the outcome (in my imagination), I move to a small and limited kingdom.

God is so much bigger than these things.

My choices all pass through the filter of God’s grace, redeeming love, and radical goodness.

Every. single. one.

At the end of the day, I will have an amazing story: one full of heartache and trouble, to be sure, but one where those things work for good and not for harm, where hope and a future determined by a good God are intertwined in the pages, where love wins every single time, where my night of mourning is turned into glorious days of dancing and celebration and where nothing is ever wasted and all is ultimately used for my good (forming me and shaping me into the very best version of myself which is the image of Christ).  And all is used for God’s glory…

His glory…which is for all mankind to experience and be saturated by…the fullness of His glory is perhaps in part those moments when all of creations manifests the glory of God by being fully alive.

God, I let go of being responsible for outcomes.  I repent for holding onto that aspect and for allowing fear and anxiety to rule in my heart…as if they were good guides!   I relinquish control of outcomes into Your hand that writes my story interwoven and saturated with purpose, intention, and glory.

I am passionate about helping people to become all they are created to be, leaving behind old patterns of thinking, of eating, of feeling, to embrace the life they are meant to live.  If you’d like me to walk with you on this journey, contact me at heather@untethered.life and let’s discuss a plan that works best for you.