Two phrases. One that completely contradicts the other, yet with God, both make perfect sense and compliment each other.

Be Still.

Move Forward.

We all want to move on from whatever hurt us. To get past the memories and the pain and set our sites on a new future, leaving the past behind us.

But waiting in the wilderness doesn’t work that way. It’s not a season that we can control or speed up. It is a time when you have to be still enough to learn what you need to know in order for God to bring you breakthrough, but it is also a process you have to keep pressing through, one foot in the sand at a time. Some steps feel heavier than others, but every one of them are there for a purpose. Waiting is where you are fortified!

Waiting is meant for you to remember the past so you can move beyond it!

This summer has been hard for me, one that is full of vivid memories that seem to be timestamped in my head, ready to reveal themselves to me on a daily basis. Reliving the past can be hurtful and is often times toxic when you let your mind dwell on it. But facing those demons, those moments of hurt and struggle, are how you heal.

Be still enough to face the truth of your past. That is how you grieve the process of losing what you once held dear. That is how you begin the process of being made whole again.

And suddenly… you've taken one step forward,

It’s meant for you to forgive so your future can be whole.

Shattered pieces of yourself: that is all that is left when you can’t let yourself forgive, causing you to carry around the jagged shards of pain and regret, hurt and sorrow. Sometimes the biggest person you need to forgive is you, while other times it’s a person who doesn’t believe they were wrong. Either way, forgiveness has to happen and it’s a process. Without it, your heartache will suffocate you and bleed into every other relationship you have. I know. I let me fears and hurt wash over someone else just last week in a way that was completely unfair.  My burden fell on someone else.

We were never meant to carry our burden into the promised land. The desert is where it needs to stay.

Be still enough to take the time to truly let your hurt go.

Suddenly, you will be lighter… you will have taken another step forward.

It’s where you own up to your own mistakes and confess them.

Often times the worst heartache comes when you are walking through brokenness that was caused by someone else. It truly had nothing to do with you, you just got caught in the wake. Though at times, that can be a comfort, it can also be a trap. One where you think you have things under control, where you put yourself before God and you stop listening. You think you can just waltz right through this trial and control it from here on out. And that right there… that moment of feeling in control… that is the moment you fall because you have failed to trust. It’s the moment when you lose the control you foolishly thought you had.

THAT is the moment when waiting suddenly feels unbearable.

I remember sitting on my therapists’ couch bawling my eyes out. I had hit that moment and her words to me that day were life changing.

“…You just hit the spot of realizing you’re not God, and that’s okay. It makes you human! Now is where you confess with your heart that you haven’t had your eyes on Him. And then you stand up and dust the sand off your shoulders so you can start walking with Him again.”

Stand up, lean in, and start trusting!

Stop trying to control. Be still and let God move.

Because now… HE is moving you forward!

It’s meant to make you ready

Someday, your breakthrough will come! There will be a day when hind sight is 20/20 and you can see how the winding path you walked, with every hill, valley, and sand pit all made the perfect landscape. That day is probably not going to be today.

But today, you have choices to make. You can work to forgive, or you can stay stuck in the hurt. You can confess, or you can hide. You can trust, or you can try to push through on your own.

Either way you choose, you will be moving, it’s just a difference of moving towards your breakthrough, or racing back to the past.

Today, I begin to let go. Today, I begin to forgive. Today is when I give up control and trust.

Today, I MOVE FORWARD!

What are you going to choose? How do you need to be encouraged to Move Forward? Connect so you have be encouraged or Comment below!