It's Time

I love to sit here at this spot in the mornings, just as the sun streams in through my dining room window. I have to be in just the right spot at just the right time of day or I miss it. The sun gets above the covered porch pretty quickly and the shadow that it creates of my coffee cup doesn't last long.

A right time for birth and another for death,
A right time to plant and another to reap,
A right time to kill and another to heal,
A right time to destroy and another to construct,
A right time to cry and another to laugh,
A right time to lament and another to cheer,
A right time to make love and another to abstain,
A right time to embrace and another to part,
A right time to search and another to count your losses,
A right time to hold on and another to let go,
A right time to rip out and another to mend,
A right time to shut up and another to speak up,
A right time to love and another to hate,
A right time to wage war and another to make peace.

Transitions are never easy. I have sat still for so long I am almost unsure how to get myself moving.

I heard a pastor say once that when wine makers pour wine from one barrel they are careful not to stir up the dredges in the bottom of the vat. Imperfections, skins etc. settle to the bottom. So when they are pouring the wine they are very careful not to reintegrate the junk with the wine. I feel like that has been the stage I have been in for the last year. Waiting for all of the sediment to settle to the bottom. Let the imperfections fall away so that when I was poured into the new wine skin I am more refined than before.

I have held on to so much this last year that God was just waiting for me to let go. As we talked about the list of things He wanted to give me freedom from I was amazed at some of the things that I had held onto, or had held onto me. I had to break agreement with a lot of verbal commitments, a lot of spoken word curses. Things that other people had said to me that I hadn't disagreed with, that were holding me here. People don't realize the power in the tongue. I honestly think that if we did, we sure wouldn't say nearly half of what we say. There was a lot of clean up to do. There are possessions to get rid of. Habits that have to be broken. Hearts that have to mend.

It's time... there is no need to hold onto anything that wasn't mine to begin with.

Acts 16:26, "Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everybody's chains came loose."