I want you to do a really honest inventory of your life for a second. Is it possible that you have unhealthy habits or comforts in your life that you hold on to, even if only by a thread? I know I do. This became all the more obvious to me recently when a friend and I sat cross legged on the floor, catching up, swapping stories, and snacking on crackers and cheese.
At one point she opened up about her past addiction to Adderall, a prescription drug designed to treat attention deficit disorder. She explained how she felt when she took it: productive, confident, and energized. But when it wore off and she crashed? She felt sluggish, empty, and irritable. She craved a life full of authentic passion and purpose, but she felt that in her truest, rawest form, she was nothing without the drug.
“I used the drug so much that it nearly replaced my need for God,” she shared, laying her soul scars right out there in the open. “No wonder I didn’t feel close to Him. I was dependent on what I thought brought me life, not on the Author of my life.”
Well, shoot dang, girlfriend. That’s deep.
I began to wonder whether I also depended on some things for life outside of the Author of life.
She went on. “It filled me with a temporary sense of confidence and control, until it eventually wasn’t enough. I knew something had to change because I really didn’t need the drug. One day I decided to dump out all the pills but keep the prescription just in case I wanted it again. But as I held the bottle over the trash can, I realized if I was going to let go, if I was really going to change, I had to let go 100 percent, not 99 percent.”
Sister was speaking to my soul.
We can’t be 99 percent free and call that freedom. We can’t move forward through the door of our destiny if we’re still holding on to comforts or things we use to compensate for our lack of confidence.
This reminds me of a quote that says, “Old ways won’t open new doors.” In other words, if we don’t let unhealthy habits go, the growth we hope to experience won’t come.
As my friend learned, living with purpose begins with releasing the comforts that have a hold on us so God can do a work in us. She had to release her dependence on the drug to experience real and raw passion and confidence.
This transition season brought about her transformation, developing real inner strength inside her. Transformation means changing from the inside out—experiencing change at the core of who we are, which then changes our behavior and circumstances.
You want to know what that means? It means we must be changed on the inside so we can be the change in the world. And that often begins with making a hard choice—a choice to make a change when it comes to what we cling to for courage, comfort, or confidence. It begins with doing the hard work that’s required to let go of what has a hold on us—and not most of it but all of it.
What’s my point here? It’s that you and I can break through the barriers that hold us back only if we break away from all the unhealthy things that have a hold on us. The door to our destiny gets stuck when we refuse to release the 1 percent we cling to.
I’ll be honest. When I first thought about what I might be holding on to personally, nothing came to mind. So I didn’t think I had anything to share with you.
Then a few months ago, my husband and I decided we wanted to go to marriage counseling—not because our marriage was falling apart but because we both realized it would be a healthy discipline to strengthen our marriage.
Matt describes marriage counseling as preventative maintenance and compares it to getting the oil changed on your car. You don’t get your oil changed after your car breaks down. You do it to prevent your car from breaking down so you can get to where you want to go, right?
If we take care of our cars like this, why wouldn’t we take care of ourselves, our marriages, and our health in the same way? In other words, this mind-set can be applied to counseling in general, not just marriage counseling.
This discipline has been incredibly helpful in these early years of marriage. In our first meeting I discovered unmet expectations I’d been holding on to that I didn’t even realize were there! Turns out Matt had some unmet expectations he’d held on to as well. We opened up, we prayed, and we confessed everything we had unknowingly been holding on to. It was so healing.
Did you know that when you hold on to something like unmet expectations, you actually set yourself up to be bitter without even meaning to? Once I identified these expectations, I was able to let go of them for the very first time. Immediately I felt lighter. I found that I was more patient and understanding. Identifying and letting go of unmet expectations proved to be pivotal, and I believe it has really improved our marriage.
Sister, no matter what it is you might be holding on to—something not so obvious, like unmet expectations, or something incredibly difficult, like addiction—counseling can be so helpful. Unfortunately, many people avoid it because they think they have to be falling apart or at rock bottom.
My advice if you’re struggling with the idea of seeking counsel is this: shift your mind-set. Don’t be afraid to make an uncomfortable choice so you can experience positive change.
I know that subhead sounds awfully morbid. Allow me to explain. As I’m writing these words, I’m watching summer turn to fall outside my window. It’s that long-anticipated, marvelous time of the year when the soybean fields change from green to golden brown, warm air turns crisp, people gather for weekend bonfires and football tailgates, and every U-Pick apple orchard in the Indiana countryside is filled with families and friends. If you’ve never experienced fall in Indiana, I can assure you that you’re missing out. (I know I said FOMO is fake a few chapters back, but this is the exception.)
Anyway, I just brewed a cup of tea, and I’m curled up on my paisley office chair. An apple pie–scented candle is burning in the kitchen, really setting the mood. The leaves outside my big office window have started to turn beautiful shades of yellow, red, and orange. Days like this bring back childhood memories of being at a local apple farm with Grandma and Grandpa and of snuggling into Grandma as we’d take a tractor ride through the cornfields, enjoying the colorful leaves on the nearby sunlit trees.
Anyway, watching the occasional leaf fall to the ground makes me realize something I hadn’t before. For months the leaves were vibrant green and full of life, shading the sidewalks and our backyard. You’d think they would have found their calling when they were at their best—bright, glossy, and alive.
Then, at just the right time, they begin to change color. They’re beautiful, but when they flutter through the wind as they float to the ground, when they create a canvas across the tree line, dancing in the breeze as they go, they’re dead.
Maybe transformation can be hard because, although it’s a beautiful and necessary process, something must die for it to occur.
The good news is we get more leaves in the spring. After a long, cold winter, new life buds on every branch. This cycle of flourishing, then withering, and then flourishing again has been built into the trees’ design. That same process—release and resilience—is built into us too.
We must let go of something—our pride, an old habit, a comfortable sin, or something else we cling to just a little too tightly. This is a difficult, often uncomfortable, and sometimes even painful part of finding the power, purpose, and freedom we were made to live with.
Personally, I’m not a fan of seasons that force me to make a hard choice or release my favorite comforts. I don’t do well with change, I guess. Maybe I get my resistance to change from my dad, the man who’s slept his entire adult life with the same pillow he had in college and has now lovingly nicknamed Lumpy.
Lumpy the pillow. I know. It sounds ridiculous. Who would hold on to something so old? Maybe someone who’s resistant to releasing what’s familiar, someone who would rather avoid change. To us, Lumpy may seem gross, but to my dad, it brings comfort and consistency.
We all like comfort, consistency, and control, don’t we?
You may not have a lumpy old pillow, but I bet you’re hanging on to other lumpy old things in your life—things that may promise life and bring you comfort but ultimately can’t deliver and quite possibly even hold you back from doing what you’ve been designed to do.
Back to the leaves.
Imagine if the leaves never let go. We’d never get to gaze at the vibrant autumn hues or leap into the piles of raked leaves that hold a hint of the magic of childhood.
But the leaves don’t cling to the tree. They don’t refuse to budge. They surrender to the design and submit to the process—the purpose that’s been built into them since seasons began. The tree flourishes only when the dead parts are removed so new life can grow, and it can foster new growth only when the root system is healthy.
The same is true for you and me. We can be resilient through the difficult seasons and bounce back when we let something unhealthy go, but we must have healthy roots beneath the surface. When our hearts are healthy, we can fearlessly make the hard choice to shed whatever needs to be removed so we can experience real, lasting change. We flourish only when we release control of the lifeless things we’ve held on to, the things that suck the life out of us, choke the health of our hearts, and hold us back from living as we should.
What lifeless things are you holding on to? What do you need to release? An unhealthy habit? An old flame you keep going back to against your better judgment? A grudge you’ve been carrying? Something else?
Sister, this can be a process. The leaves don’t change colors, drop from branches, and bud again all on the same day. And neither do we. I know that deep-seated issues such as addiction, PTSD, self-harm, and other battles with mental health are not just dropped overnight. If you struggle with something like this, please seek the necessary professional help.
You’re not being weak. Choosing to address the issue you are facing requires strength and purpose. No matter what you are struggling with or how long it takes to completely release it, do not give up. You and I must take steps to let go of what poisons our fruit and stifles our growth if we wish to bloom as we’ve been made to.
I’m with you on this, friend. Let today be the day you choose to make a change.