Just Be Held

As I'm sitting at work listening to my Third Day Pandora station and stuffing 130 envelopes for clients, I was thinking and contemplating what to blog about next. This blog is mostly my struggle with PCOS and how I'm walking with God through it all, and to compliment that perfectly, the song Just Be Held by Casting Crowns comes on. All I can remember is the story that Mark Hall (the lead singer of Casting Crowns) told before singing this song at Soul Fest.

He told us about how each song that he has written (or that he has co-written) has had a story behind it. The song Thrive came from his youth group, as most of his songs do being a youth pastor. He told about how the song "Praise You in the Storm" was about us looking up to God and just surrendering in every season of our life, rain or shine. Then when he started to talk about Just Be Held, he got very quit. The song is basically God's perspective of "Praise You in the Storm", kind of a call and response. But what got me was when Mark said, "When I wrote this song a few years ago, it was the only song I'd written that there wasn't a story behind it, or someone I was writing it for. It wasn't until this year I realized I was writing it for myself!" As some of you may know, Mark was diagnosed with cancer back in March and had to have one of his kidney's removed.

When I listen to Just Be Held now, all I can think of is the trouble I'm going through now, but that Mark went through two years of not knowing why he was writing this song, and then realizing it was for him. Not for a friend, not for someone in the crowd that night, but for himself. I think that sometimes we forget about ourselves. We get so wrapped up in helping others that we forget to help ourselves. And the first verse of that song really hits home for me and the season I've been going through.

"Hold it all together, everybody needs you strong.
But life hits you out of nowhere and barely leaves you holding on.
When you're tired of fighting, chained by your control.
There is freedom in surrender, lay it down and let it go."

Everything about this just resonates with me. I have always tried to be that strong person for everyone else. When bad times hit, I am the one that is being leaned on. I'm the one everyone's calling for advice and looking for help. So being on the other end of things is really hard for me. But that last line, "There is freedom in surrender, lay it down and let it go." I think that just hits home with me. It's hard to give up stuff, physical and emotional. It's hard to let go of those negative thoughts that can surround you when you don't see God answering your prayers the way you want them to be. There isn't freedom in doing it your own way. There isn't freedom in saying "well, if God's not going to do it, I am." There IS freedom in surrendering to Christ!!! Surrendering all your baggage, all your sin, all your troubles. Surrender your illnesses to him. Surrender your depression, your anxiety, your self esteem issues, your addictions. Leave them all at the cross!

In Matthew 4:19, Jesus tells us to follow him and he will make us fishers of man. I hope that if I hear the call to stop what I'm doing and to just follow Jesus, that I will do so. I have in the past, and I hope that in my days to come I will remain as faithful to him as he is to me!

All of this isn't something that typically just happens over night for most of us. All it takes is a moment to lay your sins down at the throne of Jesus, and all it takes is a moment to pick them back up again. Once you lay down your sin, your disease, and everything else, you have to continually lay them down! I have laid down my PCOS at that cross so many times, but somewhere along the line, I think I can handle it all on my own, and I pick up that burden again and it weighs me down again. And I do this more times than I'd like to admit. So this isn't just to encourage you, but to encourage and remind myself too that I need to keep laying my burdens at the cross and follow Jesus.

So ladies and gentleman, keep your heads up, keep your dreams big, and keep on loving Jesus!
God Bless
Amanda