White Knuckles

The kids are finally sleeping.

The only light in the house is coming from the flickering candle on the kitchen counter.

The only sound is the gentle tick-tock from the clock on the wall.
 
There I sit in my husband's recliner.

My hands are in my lap.  I look at my closed fists, willing them to open.  I am determined to make them open.  To have hands open for the Lord to take & lead.

I open my hands.

I can feel my tears rolling down my cheeks as the fear within me clamps them shut again.

In my head I think about a section from the book my Bible study group is doing.  A paragraph that has gripped me for weeks.  I read and reread it over and over.  The book is A Quest for More by Paul Tripp.  The chapter is Sacrifice and the section is called white-knuckle living.
"The thing that is shocking about Christ's call to sacrifice is that he is calling us to die.  No, not to take our lives in the physical sense, but to so fundamentally sacrifice all that is precious to us, that it is as if we have died.  In the sense that it cannot be the central treasure of our hearts, he call us to die to our most precious relationship.  He calls us to die to our plan for our own lives.  He calls us to die to all the things we have set our hearts on that we think will make us happy and once and for all satisfy us.  He calls us to open our fists and give up all those other treasures that would control our decisions, determine our actions, and edit our words.  Jesus knows that we are not able to follow Him and hold our fists around these things at the same time, because they end up taking hold of us.  Christ calls us to acknowledge that what we once wanted, and then became convinced that we needed, we now have become addicted to.  We don't hold things very well.  Again and again we experience that what we once held loosely has now come to control us.  So he calls us to open our hands and offer everything for his taking.  And we celebrate his call to sacrifice, because it is a welcome to freedom.  This call to die is a welcome to a wonderful new life.  And the One who makes this call is the One who gave himself as the sacrifice that is the central event of the big kingdom.  He was willing to let go of it all, even to die, so that we could live in personal pursuit of him, increasingly freed from bondage to all the other things that may control us" (pages 180-181)

Father, I want open hands! So I force them open.

All my questions, all my fears, all the unkowns - they cause my fingers to close back into a fist.  But how my heart longs for them to be open.

Can I have open hands & still desire my husband and my marriage?  What does that practically look like for my life?  I don't want my marriage to be an idol.  I want to be able to give it all up for the sake of knowing Christ my Savior.  To count it all as loss in order to follow Jesus in every aspect of my life.

Through my tears I confess my sins in where I stumble in living as though anything but Jesus is needed.  To ask Him to forgive my unbelief in who He is and what He can do.  For forgiveness when I cross the line of needing my husband instead of letting him be one of the good & perfect gifts that come from Him alone. To accept the freedom of not having to try & figure out that balance on my own.  Trusting Him to lead me as He teaches me that balance for this day.

I can't pry them open & make them stay open.  I am too weak to do that.  I need His perfect strength & gentleness to slowly, finger by finger, open my hands.

To rest the back of my small, weak hands in His strong and mighty palms.

My hands, my life ... in His hands.

I can leave it all to Him, for Him to make the changes that need to happen.  For Him to restore what He plans to restore. Redemption comes only by His blood so that He alone receives the glory. I can rest in His promises poured out in His Word.

I sit in the quiet, candle-lit room.

Resting in His hands.