Our family spent New Years creating what hopefully will be a new tradition. We are calling it to burn the ships after a song that has touched us this year. The song is by For King and Country and has given us the opportunity to talk about the things that we have encountered in the past year and have allowed them to get a grip on us. The situations, comments, inner thoughts that we have, all can take hold of us and cause us trauma, false guilt, anxiety, depression and all of this can be magnified when these situations start to compile.
So this year we decided to try something different, we took newspapers and cut them into different sizes. We then took markers and wrote the “things” that had been spoken over us or that were having an effect on us. In doing this, we talked about not forgetting these “things” we put on the paper but to release the grip they had on us and allow Jesus to fill and heal those spots. We took those pieces of paper and placed them in the pot and then we released them and returned them to ashes.
This year our family will be heading into transition and change, the mission God has before us is exciting, but it is not without fear and nervousness. But through this exercise doors for talking about those fears have been opened. The communication within our family has been wonderful since walking into this night of release.
My encouragement to you is to take the time to do something as little as talk or pray together. The freedom that can come from such a small thing is amazing. We will be praying for you. So go forward and burn the ships.