breakthrough
I wonder how many times in my life I have given up on something right before breakthrough came. How many times did I work hard and never see the result I wanted? How many times did I hope for something and never see it fulfilled? How many times did I ask God for a miracle and never receive it?
The other day I came into the living room and found my one year old climbing off the couch and screaming in panic. He was lowering himself to the ground without being able to see it, and he was a little hot mess of fear… because he thought he was going to fall. His foot was LESS THAN half an inch from the floor. I’m not kidding. He didn’t even need to lower himself any further, he only needed to point his toe down. He had lowered himself all the way to hovering above the floor and then fear took over - I watched him scream and pull himself all the way back up to the top of the couch.
HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I DONE THAT?? I’ll never know. But I am sure that every single time I have done it, I had the exact same thing to blame as Oaken did: fear.
A really good friend once told me that breakthrough is like a slinky. If you have a slinky, go grab it right now and prepare for you mind to be blown. If not, just picture this with me: when you hold a slinky up in the air and let it dangle down, and then you drop it… the entire top of the slinky moves down to meet the bottom of the slinky and THEN the whole thing drops to the ground.
Seriously. Watch it here: YOUTUBE: Slinky
Do you ever feel like you are going in circles and processing/praying through the exact same stuff over and over without full healing or full breakthrough? Remember this ::
Starting over is not a failure. You are not starting from scratch. You are starting from experience.
-Dr. Caroline Leaf
You’re a spiral on the slinky - even though it feels like you’re going in circles, you’re actually spiraling closer and closer to the bottom - the full breakthrough - each time.
I have had countless breakthrough experiences that relate to anxiety and fear. But that doesn’t mean I’m totally free from fear. It does mean that I can face it and process through it a little bit easier each time.
And why is this important? Why do we push through and defeat fear over and over again?
My father-in-law (aka “Pappy” in this household) often says:
“On the other side of your deepest fear, is the greatest reality of your true identity.”
My daughter, Rayne has always loved to sing. She’s told us so many times that she wants to be a singer on stage when she is bigger (she has big plans to be a singer, a teacher, a chef, a waitress, an astronaut, an engineer and a fashion designer).
So a few weeks ago, when we got an email about a talent show at her school, I asked her if she wanted to sing a song in the school talent show. Immediately, she said no.
Rayne and her dad had already been hard at work perfecting a duet from Frozen 2, so I was a little surprised that she said no so quickly. I asked again a few days later and she said no again - this time she told me it was because it was too scary.
So we talked a little bit about being able to do scary things but she insisted that she wasn’t interested.
One day I was holding her and we were singing a song together and I said to her, “Rayne if you had no fear about the talent show, would you audition?” and immediately she said “yeah!”
We chatted about the importance of defeating fear and not letting fear steal away joy and fun experiences in our life.
Rayne made a decision to not let fear win. She said she was going to throw fear on the ground and smash it. So she worked hard and she went to the audition filled with bravery.
I listened in from the classroom doorway, crying through the whole audition, knowing that with every note she sang, she was defeating a little bit more of that fear!
As we drove away from that audition, Rayne shouted at the top of her lungs,
“I AM SO PROUD OF MYSELF!!!”
My sweet seven year old just defeated fear for her first time and she could feel it in her bones that it was good. She didn’t know whether she’d be picked to be in the talent show or not, she just knew that she did what she needed to do.
Turns out she was indeed picked to be in the talent show (as the opening act!!) and if you need a little dose of freaking adorable in your life, here you go ::
