On the beauty of giving up the fight.

After last year, I vowed that 2014 would be a year of rest. But let's be honest: rest is not the default response for so many of us, especially when life overwhelms. My husband and I both have full time jobs that require our availability at a moment's notice. We have a messy house and college bills and a car which currently has no heat. We have families that tug and friends we wish we could spend more time with. We have ministry obligations that take place between half an hour and an hour from where we live. Far more often than not, we are on the go, making plans to do this or that. And then, of course, plans fall through. Life throws a pitch we weren't expecting, and we have to adjust as best we can.

May I receive the grace to confess a flaw? I am not a flexible person. I have the tendency to set my expectations in stone, and cling tightly to control. More often than not, these expectations hinge on one person: myself. Because my house currently looks like the aftermath of a natural disaster after a month filled with travel, I feel like a failure. Anxiety rises up in my heart. I rush to do something, anything to be deserving of approval.

One of the most crucial things I learned last year: for me, anxiety is a choice. I don't have to fight to the bitter end for peace, I simply have to choose the realization that grace has already been accomplished.

"It is finished." May those words land on your bones for the nights when fear tells you that the cross was a beginning and you have to finish grace. -- Jon Acuff

What I am battling for, Christ has already won. I have only to open my hands to receive that which is given to me.