Let Go and Let God

Have you ever been in a situation where you held onto something so tight in your life, trying to control it, and wondered where God was? You prayed and prayed for God to move and nothing happened? You wondered where God was in your trouble? I've learned over the years how to let go and let God through many situations. The one that comes to mind most is this:

I was going through a divorce, we had been separated for 9 years and I finally agreed to a divorce when he offered to pay for it and said he wanted to marry someone else. I'm not advocating divorce, but he had been unfaithful from the time he still lived in the house and throughout the 9 years. I had a Biblical reason for divorce, but continued to hold on for 9 years.

We went to our attorney, who had done our legal separation 9 years prior. I didn't want the back and forth fight so many go through. I wanted an agreeable divorce. In that meeting he told the attorney he would pay for it. Over the next year or more, the attorney slowly went through the motions of filing paperwork and started billing me for over $1200 plus interest every month. I called the office, I emailed (which they charged me for!) and they never returned my calls. After about six months of this I enlisted another attorney. He wrote letters, called and to no avail. I talked to my husband and he refused to pay, though he said to me and our attorney he would. I fought. My new attorney and I decided to file a complaint with the Legal Arbitration Committee, a group of attorneys in town that handled wrongful charges from lawyers. We gave her a couple more chances and then let her know our intentions to go to the Legal Arbitration Committee.

My kids were 10 and 13 and had never been to Disneyland. I had saved a tax refund to take them but waited because I might need to use that money to pay this attorney. I remember walking into the bathroom stall at work and praying, "God, if you think the right thing to do is for me to pay this bill, I will. I don't think it is right, I want to take the kids to Disneyland, they deserve it, but I will do whatever you want me to do." The next day I received a letter from her via my new attorney that she wasn't going to bill me anymore. Now I must say that her letter was very mean, saying that what goes around comes around, basically saying that I was trying to get out of paying the bill. I don't know what my husband told her after we met and he said he would pay the bill or if she just decided to go after the one with the better job. But the letter was very unprofessional and whenever anyone asks for a referral to a divorce attorney, I make sure to tell people not to use her.

So many times I've had the situation of trying to manage a situation myself and couldn't get anywhere. Then I woke up and decided to give it to God and not worry about it. It's when we open our hands and let go of things that God takes the situation and turns it out for good.