It’s Time to Trade the Yoke {Velvet Ashes}

I’m hosting The Grove at Velvet Ashes today. This is the first thing I wrote after finishing a “writing fast” a few weeks ago. (As an aside, completing this purposeful season of electronic quietness must have unleashed a torrent of words inside me, as evidenced by the sheer number of blog posts and Facebook statuses I’ve shared in the time since writing this post.) ~Elizabeth

At the beginning of this year I sensed God pressing the pause button on my writing. Not now, He said, not yet. I nodded and said OK. You’ve got stuff in your heart that needs to come out, He said —black, tarry, sticky stuff. I sighed and told Him I knew.

There was a stronghold in my life, a particular set of sins I’d been unequally yoked to. So I stopped writing and started working hard with God instead. Except I wasn’t always working with Him; sometimes I was working against. I complained, I reasoned, I argued. I contended that I was right and He was wrong. I kicked against those goads, oh yes I did.

Until one morning this month when breakthrough began, and the yoke began to crack. Later that day I sensed God lifting the ban on writing, almost as if to say, Ok, now you can start writing again, and THIS is what you need to write about.

Which is why I’m here today, taking a deep breath and walking to the front of the online support group we call Velvet Ashes. It’s why I’m steadying my feet, looking into your lovely virtual faces, and announcing that I’m Elizabeth, and I’ve been yoked to bitterness. I’ve harbored unforgiveness in my heart. I’ve been very, very angry.

Finish reading this post here.