Twiggie Makes by Candace Grahl

This is difficult for me to write & even as I do I am heavy-hearted, but also feel a deeper joy growing. It’s very strange, actually.

I have blogged before about how the Lord has taken me on a serious spiritual journey the last few months and the things he has shown has blown me away - I wish I could tell each and every one of you all about this Jesus that I love so much and the fact that I can finally say that. Took me twenty-nine years but I love Jesus! But now that he is bringing me out of the desert and into the promised land I am feeling him asking me to now step out in faith and begin practicing what he has been writing on my heart.

The biggest hurdle I am facing at this point is Him asking me to lay anything & everything before him so we can decide if it’s what he desires for my life. For the first time ever I am happy to do this because I know my heart can not be trusted - that has been made painfully clear. I have chased selfishly & crazily after things that I thought would bring me satisfaction but ultimately it hasn’t. What it has brought me is captivity and an ache for something more, something true, for what I didn’t know was I was chasing an idol image. And like Isaiah says when he talks about those who were making and worshiping the idols, I was gripping it so tightly in my hands that I didn’t even know what I was doing - I didn’t know that what I was holding onto was a lie. He has since shown me that anything I grip to bring me wholeness and satisfaction, that is not him, is a lie. It’s the worst kind of cheater. And suddenly I realize just how many things I was holding fast to that were not him.

One day in particular as I was praying about how to let this go, he very gently asked me to just offer everything to him. To relinquish all control over to him & together we would sort it out. There’s a song that we sing at our church called “All for Jesus” & it’s been one of those songs that I find myself singing without even realizing it. Which is great, because in and of itself it’s a wonderful prayer:

Jesus, all for Jesus
All I am and have, and ever hope to be…
All of my ambitions, hopes and plans
I surrender these into your hands

A short time later I started telling Tim all that the Lord was doing in my heart, but that I was having such difficulty with it. One of the things that he was asking of me was to surrender completely and trust him with my desire for affirmation from my peers, and making a name for myself. I don’t realize how much I do that, how much I genuinely want it and this blog is exactly where I do it the most. I tearfully asked Tim if I was going to be okay if at the end of my life the only thing that Christ ever asked of me was to just be a wife and a mother. Not a successful entreprenuer. Not an acclaimed author. Not the owner of a really cute and fun blog. Just plain old me, a face in a sea of people, but being exactly where Jesus wants me. I know he will give me a greater joy than my heart would ever find chasing these dreams, but my temporal mind wrestles with this and it breaks my heart. Handing my dreams over to Christ is the easy part, but letting him hang onto them indefinitely? And what if he never gives them back? I know that God is good and he can be trusted and if he takes these things away for good it’s only because he desires the best for me. So…how can I argue, really?

I don’t want to ramble…I guess I just wanted to let you know why I will no longer be blogging. Part of me thinks I will go down this road again (because I love it so much and have met some amazing people through it), but the other part of me is excited at how the Lord will work in this area of my heart now that there is more space for him to move around. Thank you so much to those of you who have followed this blog and hopped around from domain name to domain name with me. I would still love to hear from you and this blog will stay put for reference or if you want to get in touch with me.

Many blessings to you,

Candace