When I Finally Let Go

There was a season of my life when I was desperate to find relief.

The pain in my upper back had become almost unbearable. It felt as if a knife were lodged between my shoulder blades, and no matter what I tried, nothing seemed to help.

So I kept searching.

Maybe this doctor.

Maybe that treatment.

Maybe this therapy.

Maybe this answer.

The more I searched, the more exhausted I became.

Eventually, I reached the end of myself.

I remember finally surrendering and saying,

“Okay, God… I’m done chasing. I’m not taking another step until I know for certain it’s You leading me.”

Something shifted inside of me.

Not because the pain suddenly disappeared.

But because I stopped frantically trying to figure everything out.

For the first time in a long time, I wasn’t making decisions from fear.

I simply became still.

Then the breadcrumbs began to appear.

Someone mentioned the name of a doctor.

Then something came in the mail.

Then I had a dream.

Each one, by itself, could have easily been dismissed.

But together, they gently pointed me in the same direction.

One breadcrumb.

Then another.

Then another.

By the time I walked into that doctor’s office, my heart had become settled.

I didn’t know what was about to happen.

I just knew I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

As I checked in, the receptionist looked at my paperwork.

“Blossom Valley Road,” she read with a smile.

“That’s beautiful.

You should write a book.”

I smiled, but inside I paused.

She had no idea I had been carrying around the dream of writing a book. At the time, the title resting in my heart was Blossoming Out of the Valley.

She couldn’t have known that.

But I did.

Another breadcrumb.

Then I met with the doctor.

I expected him to focus on my back pain.

Instead, he began asking questions that reached far beyond the physical pain I had been carrying.

He gave me practical changes to make with my diet.

Then he asked me to do something I never expected.

He encouraged me to write a gratitude letter to my father.

At first, it didn’t make much sense.

I had come because my back hurt.

What did that have to do with my dad?

Looking back now, I smile.

That one appointment became so much more than a doctor’s visit.

The receptionist.

The conversation.

The gratitude letter.

One breadcrumb after another.

For so long, I believed the harder I searched, the closer I would get to the answers.

Instead, I found myself exhausted.

It wasn’t until I finally surrendered and stopped chasing that the breadcrumbs began to appear.

Not all at once.

Just one at a time.

A conversation.

Something in the mail.

A dream.

Each one gently leading me exactly where I needed to be.

Looking back now, I don’t remember that appointment because of one extraordinary moment.

I remember it because it was the first time I experienced what it felt like to stop forcing my way forward and simply follow the next breadcrumb.

~~~~~~~

Part of the Breadcrumbs collection by Abby Lewis—true stories that leave room for God to speak.