5 minute read
Free to Flourish
from Winter 2021
free to flourish You are meant to live a vibrant and thriving life.
by Shelly Esser
Afriend stopped me in my tracks: “I hope you are flourishing.” Unexpectantly, tears began to spill down my face. You see…I was not flourishing and hadn’t been for some time. Instead, I had been only surviving, just getting by. God used those words that day to get my attention and take me on a journey that has changed the course of my life this past year.
Decades of hard stuff had slowly drained the life out of me. I started out like a balloon full of air and promise only to watch the air slowly leak out. I didn’t even recognize what was happening. But I felt deflated emotionally, physically, and spiritually. I had become a shell of myself. Who was I? What was I passionate about? I didn’t know. I lost myself—the girl inside who used to be so passionate and positive and ready to take on the world. Where was she?
In my tears, God invited me to flourish. And the good news as Jennie Lusko puts it: “When God calls us to ‘flourish,’ it doesn’t mean to become something brand new. It means to revive; to bring back to life what and who we were meant to be. We weren’t created to become something totally different but to become what we were originally designed for.” I found that comforting. Because somewhere in the middle of my lost self was the girl God had always created me to be. She was in there and He was just waiting to set her free to flourish—in every way—even in the hard stuff.
What I got so wrong was that flourishing can only happen when everything is going well, when my circumstances are good. We don’t have to wait to flourish until life calms down and is free of troubles (that will never happen). Love, joy, peace, gratitude, hope, and an overall well-being can happen in any season of our lives and in any circumstances. And it can start today!
Here are some steps I’ve been working on in my flourishing journey to revive the life God wants me to live and to set that lost girl free …
Open Your Soul Up to God.No more pretending, no
more going through empty motions. Lay it all out on the table with Him. He knows anyway. Be real…be raw…tell it like it is. Pour your brokenness out to God, tell Him you’re angry, share your doubts, express the pain of unanswered prayers, and unhealed minds and bodies. He can handle it. Let Him cradle your broken heart. Let Him rub the healing balm of His deep love into your wounds. See the darkness, the deadness as an invitation from God to discover Him in a deeper way and to a pathway of healing for the unspoken pain you have carried alone for far too long. An invitation that will lead you to become the flourisher He designed you to be.
List every disappointment, hurt, disillusionment, grief, doubt—every cry of your heart. Go back so you can go forward. It’s the enemy’s lie that keeps us burying pain deep within our souls. It only results in distance from God.
Take Off Your Sackcloth.Psalm 30:8, 11 says, “To you, O LORD, I called; to the LORD I cried for mercy…you turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy.” It’s essential to work through our grief in a healthy way and take the necessary time to do that, but we can’t flourish if our wailing never becomes dancing and the only outfit in our wardrobe is sackcloth. Gently, the Lord said, “It’s time to take off your sackcloth, to stop wallowing in your losses and exchange them for the joy I have waiting for you.” It was hard because I had become so comfortable in mine—I had worn it for years—but we can’t stay in sorrow forever. We need to see the beautiful and find the joy again. Let God Love You.Part of God’s flourishing plan for me was for me to rediscover His incredible love for me in a way I had not understood before—a love not based on what I did for Him, not based on my worthiness, but on me in my messiness, just as I am, the beloved daughter of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords! For the first time I started to really believe and experience that. Nothing…not weariness, not brokenness, not missing a quiet time, not my worst version of myself, not living in sackcloth for too long could change His love for me. God loves me. Period.
Build Fun into Your Life. When I started to look back at the lost girl, I noticed that she used to be fun. Somehow that got deflated as well. I had given so much of myself in the process of caring for others, it became hard to even remember what I loved to do before medical illnesses, and its weary aftermath took up residence in my life. So, every week I scheduled something fun. My soul desperately needed that, and, to my surprise, I started flourishing again.
Find Someone to Journey with You.Too often, I al-
lowed myself to struggle alone. I heard voices from my past telling me that I needed to be strong—more air out of my balloon. We can’t go it alone. Flourishing involves inviting people who can help us along the way. I started meeting with an incredibly wise life coach who has helped me tremendously. To have a cheerleader when you have felt so beaten down for so long has been a healing balm to my soul. We need someone to help us hold our arms up in the battle, in the moments of crushing defeats and setbacks, in the moments when it looks like we’re not going to win—someone to help us fill our balloons up again. She did that for me.
The flourishing journey will look different for each of us—and it takes time. But we have an incredibly patient and loving God who sees our struggles, our pain, our distance—our deflated balloons—and He comes alongside us to free us from the things that get in the way of the flourishing life He intended. And as we let Him bring our lost selves back to life, He welcomes us with open arms and fills us up with joy again.
Shelly Esser has been the editor of Just Between Us for 30-plus years. Additionally, she has been involved with leading and nurturing women in Christ since college. She and her husband have four adult daughters, two sons-in-law, and a grandson. They live in Menomonee Falls, Wis.
