Day 10- My Story

Today’s Quote: “..we must come to the place in our lives where we can lay down the everlasting burden of always needing to manage others….when we genuinely believe that inner transformation is God’s work and not ours, we can put to rest our passion to set others straight.”- Richard Foster

Today’s Song: “I’m Letting Go”- Francesa Batesseli

Ok girlfriend, it is time to roll up our sleeves because we are about to get personal. 

I am going to share with you some of my own struggles with letting go, and what God did through my own breakup experience.

I was the ultimate attached and dependent girlfriend. 

I was downright pathetic, if you could not tell by now. 

That’s the only reason that I know about all of this crazy female stuff, because I went through it. And man, did I go through it! 

My #9’s name was Derek, and listen when I tell you that none of you have more of your energy, time, and heart invested in your ex than I had in Derek. I was in it with that boy. He was my world and I was absolutely heartbroken at the prospect of trying to let him go. 

I didn’t even think it was possible.

But as I was in the midst of trying to deal with our situation, and pray, and half give it over to God and half not, God began to teach me something that changed everything. And it started with a conversation that I had with my pastor after church one day.

Derek and I had not spoken in months, and I had meant to just ask my pastor for some prayer about the situation, but about three words into my first sentence I fell apart sobbing and telling him way more than I had planned to; all about the ups and downs and everything that I was going through just trying to let go him go. And I will never forget, he said something like:

“Audry, you need to remember that God loves Derek even more than you love Derek. And he can do a work with him that you could never do. You need to give Derek to God in faith.”

Wow. That was exactly what I needed to hear. Audry, let him go! 

Give him to God in faith; meaning that if God wants to heal your relationship and bring it full circle, he will. If not, it is because he has something better for you. It was that simple. 

But so hard at the same time. I had so much riding on this guy. I had a son with this him, girls, and you don’t just let that sort of thing fall to the ground without a fight. 

But my fight was up. God was showing me that I needed to let him go. I needed to put Derek in his hands.

And that’s exactly what I did, over the next 6 months. 

I use to go and just ball my eyes out at this one spot by the lake. I would even put on our old songs sometimes and just sit in my car and cry and cry and cry. And then I would get out, go down by the lake and pray. 

*I would pray for Derek, wherever he was and whatever he was doing that God would begin to touch his heart. 

*I would pray that God would help me to forgive him, and forgive his family. 

*I would pray for my son that God would somehow fill the absence of his father, and I would thank him for my numerous and abundant blessings.

I just wanted to have a healthy mind about the whole thing, you know? I wanted my life back!

I didn’t want to be attached or angry anymore or not have a good-willed association with my son’s father, no matter how much of a jerk he acted like at times. 

I wanted to take responsibility for me. And God met me right where I was at.

Each day it was like he would show me something. Just something little and doable for exactly what I was struggling with. 

I remember this one day I was just so mad. I was cursing up and down about how it wasn’t fair that Derek was off doing whatever the heck he wanted, enjoying his life, and I was here raising our son all by myself. I was ticked and I was letting God know it. 

About 10 seconds after I finished that prayer, two little kids started coming up the hill right in front of me. One was running ahead of the other and yelling, 

                   “I’m gonna beat you, I’m gonna beat you.” 

And the other kid just stayed walking calmly and called back,                                     “you can’t beat me if I’m not racing you.” 

Wow! That was for me! God was telling me to stop “racing” Derek. To stop comparing our lives side by side, stay clam, and just do the right things. Simple. And so that’s what I did.

I couldn’t believe it. God was actually teaching me stuff in cool ways like that!

Now a lot of the what he showed me came out of stories and scriptures in the Bible that would just be perfect for whatever I was going through that day, or whatever he wanted me to focus on. He was bringing peace and clarity to the battlefield of my mind, and I don’t know how else to describe it but to say…. It was working!

I remember this other time when I just missed him. 

I was sulking about it and kind of like questioning God about why he didn’t let things work out with me and Derek, and literally as I’m praying it, this couple with a little boy about 5-years-old walks by fighting with eachother right in front of their son. 

I mean it wasn’t anything extreme, just bickering back and forth angrily. 

I knew that that was for me too. 

God was showing me that if He had just let things continue to go on between me and Derek, that we would still be going through the same crap for a long time. Fighting consistently in front of our son as he grew up.

But God didn’t want that for me. He wanted to heal me. He wanted to heal that whole situation. 

And that’s what He was doing. 

Day by day, just showing me things and allowing me to release to Him and just feel His closeness and presence- 

I had never experienced anything like that!

I think God wants to do that for more of us if we’d just give him the time to.

I remember knowing I was getting places, when I realized that a few weeks had gone by without me even wondering what Derek was doing on a Friday or Saturday night. That might sound like nothing to some of you, but for me it was huge! I was actually free from the burden of wanting to know what he was doing, or even caring for that matter.

And through a lot of prayer and closeness with God, I was eventually able to completely let go of Derek. 

I continued to pray for him, 

I had found good-will toward him. 

But I had totally and completely released him to God. 

I was in His hands now.

And do you want to know something crazy? 

That same pastor who I had that conversations with that day, married us about two years later. 

Yep, that’s right. I actually married Derek. 

August 15^th, 2008 I became Mrs Derek Cece.

You see pastor was right about what he had said to me that day.

God needed to get me out of the way so that He could work on Derek. And that’s what He did. Derek actually started going to church and praying during that time that I was praying for him, completely on his own! And he was not that type of guy at all!

But God brought him back to me in *such* an amazing way, as a changed man who wanted to do things His way. 

WHAT!? 

Try to tell me that God isn’t good.

And! Not only did God use that time apart to change Derek, he used it to change me.

You see, had we just stayed together from the get-go and tried to figure things out like I wanted to; not only would our relationship still be a mess, I would still be a mess. 

I never would have gotten over some of my bitterness nor grown in some of the ways I grew, had God not made that time.

It wasn’t until I began to release Derek (along with alllllll of his stupid decisions) to the Lord, that things began to turn around. 

And that’s one of the biggest lessons that I learned through this. 

That God can work much more quickly and effectively when I am not trying to steer the reigns of a situation.

That he can only begin a true work on something when we take our hand out and stop trying to direct its course. 

When we refuse to surrender a situation to him, it’s almost as if he sits back and says-

          “Okay, go ahead. You want control of the situation, I’ll let you have it.” 

And round and round we go. 

But when we finally make the conscious and consistent decision to give the whole situation to Him, that is when true progress begins to happen all around.

But it requires faith, girls. It requires release. 

He has a plan for each of us, but he first needs us to trust him with everything- even if that means that things might not work out the way we want them to work out.

And whatever his perfect will is for you, and your future love life, you will only find it once you are able to completely let go of this one, and put it in his hands.

We women exert so much energy striving to better ourselves and our relationship thinking that the weight of our world is on our own shoulders. 

I cannot tell you what a relief it is not having to do that anymore. And in turn, have things go 1000x better than you could have ever planned!

Not that the exact same thing will happen to you that happened to me. 

God’s plans for each of us are as different as our personalities. 

But whatever amazing things God has for you, if you continue to put more of your life in his hands, you will find it. 

“Anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go… you’ll have it forever, real and eternal.” John 12:25 (MSG)


Today's Dare: Today's dare builds upon yesterday's, but takes it even a step further. 


Today I want to challenge you to Do Nothing!

Throughout at least the remainder of this journey, set it in your mind to have no dealings with this guy. Make NO contact, receive no contact. Do not answer phone calls. If he is calling you or trying to get in touch with you somehow, send him a short and sweet email or text asking him to please not contact you for a while. A written request is best because if he gets you on the phone or in person he will definitely muddle your focus in one way or another. 


This might sound drastic but it's so necessary. Because while we may have every intention in the world of putting the situation in God’s hands, if we are in contact with our ex, our old habits will undoubtedly resurface and cage us back in. 


If you are ever going to have a clear head about this situation, you need time 100% away from it. I mean NOTHING!

In fact, I want you to make a sign for over your bed that says “DO NOTHING!” as a daily reminder. Leave a small space at the bottom because you will be adding a small subheading tomorrow- but for now, put that up.

Again please don’t think that just because you are doing nothing, nothing will be done. I promise you that God will be at work.

And P.S. Can we just celebrate how stinking nice it will be to not have to worry about keeping tabs on this guy anymore! 

To not worry about what he is doing on a Friday night, or who he's texting. 

Can we just revel in the fact that God knows and cares about all of these intimate details even more than we do, and He’s on the job. I mean, think about this: All you have to do, is..... 

nothing. 

Isn’t that just so nice!! Especially for those of us who feel like we’ve been doing everything to keep this thing together. Hallelujah!!