“Praise the Lord, you his angels, you mighty ones who do his bidding, who obey his word. Praise the Lord, all his heavenly hosts, you his servants who do is will. Praise the Lord, all his works, everything in his dominion. Praise the Lord, my soul.” Psalm 103:20-22

I have recently been going through a 12 step recovery program that can be meant for addictions and abuse, but just as powerful as a program used for the battle of sin in one's life. After all, sin is an addiction right? During this time, God showed His sovereignty to me by placing me with a group of faithful ladies that met me right where I was at, and spoke truths into me over and over again through prayer and community. 

About a month ago we reached step 4, inventory. “At its most basic level, inventory is an honest record of the impact sin has had on and in your life.” This step was by far the most difficult. Reliving past hurts, resentments, fears, harms that were done to me, and harms that I have done. In the trenches, it was almost unbearable to face all these hurts again, and also to see how my own sin has affected the people around me that I love. Through the inventory process, one idol God revealed to me was control. Past hurts and abandonments in young years led to a fear of rejection in me that was covered up so heavily by a bunch of symptom sins, the most prominent one being control. If I can control every single thing in my life, around my life, then I won’t get hurt. If I can control what you think about me, and make you like me, I will not be left or rejected. If I can control everything in my families lives, then they will not get hurt, left, or rejected. etc, you get the spiral. Realizing this was an idol of mine left me surprised, somehow.

God used this seemingly new information to prepare my heart and humbled me to see and to accept hurts that I have caused by my need to control. 

God showed up almost instantly, because the very next day a conversation with my husband that would normally have been less than ideal turned into nothing less than a praise to God and left us both in awe of the work He has been doing in us, in our home, in our family, and in our marriage. This little testimony is just a small glimpse of what God has been doing in and around my life recently.