Holding On When You Want to Let Go Study Guide , livre ebook

Baker Publishing Group - Sheila Walsh

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91 pages

English

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Are you struggling today? Do you look back and long for what used to be, or are you looking ahead and have no idea what's coming? Are you stuck in the middle of a mess because life has not turned out as you expected? When you run to God for answers, do you often feel like you aren't getting them--or at least aren't getting the answers you want? Are you holding on . . . but not sure how much longer you can?In times of not knowing, Sheila Walsh offers a lifeline of hope. With great compassion born of experience and hardship, Walsh comes alongside the hurting, fearful, and exhausted to remind us that we serve a God who is so much greater than our momentary troubles, no matter how insurmountable they feel. She doesn't offer a quick fix. She offers a God fix. Sharing from her own painful struggles and digging deep into biblical stories of rescue, hope, and miracles, she gives you the strength to keep going, to keep holding on to God in a world turned upside down. The accompanying study includes 10 lessons to help individuals or groups dive deeper.

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Publié par	Baker Publishing Group
Date de parution	21 septembre 2021
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781493433926
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	8 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0312€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Half Title Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
© 2021 by Sheila Walsh
Published by Baker Books
a division of Baker Publishing Group
PO Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.bakerbooks.com
Ebook edition created 2021
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4934-3289-9
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible , New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007, 2013, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations labeled AMP are from the Amplified® Bible (AMP), copyright © 2015 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.Lockman.org
Scripture quotations labeled ESV are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ESV Text Edition: 2016
Scripture quotations labeled KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.
Scripture quotations labeled Message are from THE MESSAGE , copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Scripture quotations labeled NIV are from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Scripture quotations labeled NKJV are from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
The author is represented by Dupree Miller and Associates, a global literary agency. www.dupreemiller.com
Contents
Cover
Half Title Page 1
Title Page 3
Copyright Page 4
Introduction 7
1. Holding On When Life Feels Out of Control 15
2. Holding On When You Feel Alone 33
3. Holding On When God Is Silent 53
4. Holding On When You’re Afraid 75
5. Holding On When You’ve Messed Up 95
6. Held by the Promises of God 117
7. Held by the God Who Rescues 139
8. Held by the God of Miracles 157
9. Held by the One Who Changed Everything 177
10. Let Go! You Are Being Held 197
Conclusion 219
Acknowledgments 223
Notes 225
About the Author 229
Back Ads 231
Cover Flaps 236
Back Cover 237
Introduction
IT ALL STARTED with a magazine article and a question: “Can you tell your story in six words?” Seemed impossible, but I had a three-hour flight, so I thought, Why not?
Scottish
wife
mom
clumsy
dogs
Jesus
I looked at the words on the page. All I had was a Scottish wife and mother who falls over her dogs and loves Jesus. Hardly an autobiography.
I dug a little deeper. Where do I start? How do I bring together the pain, the disappointment, the joy, the questions, and tie everything up neatly with a little six-word bow? Not possible. I put down my pencil and stared out the window at the thick, puffy clouds. As I thought back over the years, if I was brutally honest with myself, my life had not turned out as I’d expected.
At twenty-one or even thirty-one, life looked fairly straightforward, a clean line, simple. I thought I had the right answers to most things life can throw at us. But somehow those easy answers that had worked when I was younger felt hollow with the passing years, and instead of straight lines, what I saw were circles, coming back over and over to the same place, demanding more authentic answers.
I thought of how I’d pictured my “perfect” life when I was young and naive.
I’d be 5 ′ 7 ″ .
I’d have long blonde hair.
I’d have glowing skin.
I’d be graceful.
I’d be the popular, gifted, athletic girl in school.
I’d have the kind of laugh that sparkled and drew people in.
Instead,
I’m 5 ′ 3 ″ (and shrinking).
I have more gray hair than blonde.
I put concealer on with a trowel.
I trip and fall on most days ending with a y .
I was chosen last for every sport known to man.
I laugh like a horse.
Clearly not what I expected.
I’m sure we all have a silly list like this, but these are not the disappointing things that shape our lives. There are moments and events that we did not see coming, and we’re not prepared for them.
What about you? When you think about your story, are you living the life you imagined? Perhaps some days, when you have time to take a deep breath, you hardly recognize yourself in the mirror and you wonder, What happened? When life takes unexpected turns, it’s easy to feel as if everything is out of control; you feel alone, afraid. When God seems silent, do you wonder if you’ve messed up?
Or perhaps it’s more like that infuriating feeling you get when you’ve spent hours putting a jigsaw puzzle together only to discover that a couple of pieces are missing. You search under the rugs, in the dog’s mouth. You threaten your entire family with no food for a week if they’re hiding the pieces, but they’re gone.
However, I’m learning that the missing pieces in our lives are not gone forever. They reappear at unexpected moments, and even when it hurts for them to be put back in place, the picture is so much clearer when they are.
I was in the middle of a fun FaceTime call with my twenty-three-year-old son, Christian, when the conversation took an unexpected turn. He told me that he’s been dealing with nightmares. I asked him about the nightmares, and he told me that the central theme and the overwhelming feeling he is left with when he wakes up is abandonment. He’s an only child, and I know that the thought of my husband, Barry, and me being gone someday is a hard one. But there was more going on here. Even as he talked, I recognized the circle he was drawing, and it was coming right back to me. There is a brokenness in me that has cast its shadow on our son.
After my father’s death by suicide, I became hypervigilant about how other people were feeling. If you walked into a room, I could have told you how you were feeling, but not how I was feeling because . . . I wasn’t. I remember a night when I was about eleven years old. I got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. Seeing the light on underneath my mother’s bedroom door, I decided to go in, until something stopped me. She was crying. I had no memory of ever hearing my mother cry. I instinctively knew she would not want me to come in, so I sat down on the other side of her bedroom door and cried too. That night I made an unconscious vow. I vowed that I would never love anyone so much that if I lost them, I would have to weep alone for the rest of my life.
I realized that one of the circles I’d drawn was really a wall I’d built around my heart to keep me safe. I remember climbing on the ruins of an ancient Scottish castle near my home when I was a child. There was something about the missing pieces of the walls and turrets that spoke to me. This was not the castle of princesses, it was the castle for those who lived in the ruins of what was. I have always identified with lonely places. Talking this through with Christian and Barry was one of the most difficult and liberating conversations I have ever had. I’ve always been there for Christian; it’s just that not all of me was always available. Somehow, in those early formative years, he had felt a distance. That night, as we talked and tears poured down my face, I felt God place a sacred piece back into the puzzle of my life, reminding me that it’s okay to be vulnerable because God is holding on to me, and I am holding on to Him.
I am still learning how to be healed and whole and to trust God with the still-missing pieces of my life, and my son’s, because He is still writing our stories. He is still writing yours too. The pieces are not lost. You are not forgotten, overlooked, pushed aside. Your story is simply not finished yet. We all wish we were able to be the perfect parents, partners, friends, to never bruise another soul. But we are flawed, and that’s why each one of us needs the Father.

Every morning I take my Bible and a cup of coffee out onto the balcony of our townhouse. I read three psalms and a chapter from Proverbs. The morning after the conversation with our son, I sat outside in silence. As I sat there, a memory came to my mind. It was so vivid, as if I was watching a movie, but I was in the movie and so was our son. It was late at night, and we were flying home through the Chicago airport. Christian was about four years old, marching ahead of me wearing his Thomas the Tank Engine backpack. Suddenly, he stopped. I was just a few steps behind, and when I reached him, he didn’t say a word. He just lifted up his arms. He didn’t need to say a word because I heard him.
Mommy, I’m tired.
I bent down and picked him up and held him close. I remembered that night so clearly, even as the picture faded away and it was just me in the morning sun on the balcony. I sat for a few moments in the quiet, and then I stood up, put my Bible down on my chair, and lifted up my arms. I have raised my arms in worship before, but this was different. I was a child needing her Father. I didn’t say a word. I didn’t have to. I felt held.
I have no idea what’s going on in your life as you read these words. What I do know is that we will all face challenges, heartaches, things we didn’t see coming. There will be moments when we wish we could rewrite chapters of our stories. But as I began to dig deep into God’s Word in past weeks and months, I saw in a way I’ve never understood before that God has been writing our stories from the very beginning. Life is not out of control, even when it feels as if it is. I promise you that. You are being held, and Go