The way my life has been set up for the last two years or so can only be titled “the great undoing” – shout out to my sister Dr. Gabrielle Gibson who introduced me to the concept of “undoing to become.”
Here is a quick recap of my life in case you are new here. The most significant shift of my life started in February 2021 when I went through my first time of deliverance through the ministry, Restoring the Foundations. It was three days and fifteen hours of ministry time that went into the very foundations of my life and restored me to God’s original intent for my identity. After that life-changing time, I went through a deliverance “tune-up” in December 2022 and received even more freedom. I eventually became a certified deliverance minister in February 2023 and was trained to use the same tools that brought me to freedom to minister deliverance to others by the power of the Holy Spirit.
I expected that becoming “freer than the day before” and now certified to minister deliverance to others would make this walk of freedom easier. Instead, the last 22 months since I became a deliverance minister have been filled with a shaking like I could not have imagined. I knew something was brewing as I came up on my 40th birthday in 2023 but I could not have anticipated what the year would bring.
April 2023 met me releasing the one career path that I had laid out for myself since the age of three. I surrendered the title of ‘attorney’ along with any intention to return to the practice of law. I closed my law practice in February 2019 so one would assume that formally walking away from a legal career in 2023 would have given me ample time (four years) to adjust to life after law. But what met me in the wake of my decision was a wave of grief like nothing I could have anticipated. I kept brushing off the grief, telling myself it did not matter. I had already decided years ago that legal practice was not for me. I gave law my best shot (was it really my best?) and all I had received in return was a growing sense of imposter syndrome that eventually gave way to mental health crises and panic attacks.
Try as I may, I could not shake the grief that I had “lost” something by giving up my legal career. Eventually, I stopped trying to “push through” and decided to acknowledge my grief. The sense of loss I was carrying was because being a lawyer had given me a well-defined understanding of what my career identity would entail for all of my adult life until the age of 39. Without law as even a possibility, I was faced with reinventing myself at 40.
At a time when my colleagues from law school were collecting accolades for fifteen years of experience as legal practitioners, experts, judges, and industry movers and shakers – I was starting all over. The waves of grief came in pulses. Many days and weeks, I would be filled with hopeful optimism at a future that looked wide open, and other days I would lament the thought of having to be an “entry-level professional” almost 20 years after entering law school.
I spent the rest of 2023 processing my grief and sense of loss. The Lord was kind in meeting me wherever I found myself. As I entered 2024, I kept asking the Lord what was next. I got my answer in February of 2024 and began carving out my next path towards a meaningful career. I enrolled in a grueling certificate program to learn a new industry. It took me seven months and three weeks to complete my six-month certificate, but I persevered. Through serious illnesses, multiple hospital stays, and a terrifying week in the children’s hospital, I eventually completed my certificate in September of 2024.
Enrolling in and completing that certificate program was an act of surrender. It meant that I was ready for the Lord to lead me down a different path than the one I had carved out for almost 20 years.
I was optimistic about the future once again.
But this new place of promise has also been filled with familiar giants and new opposition. The imposter syndrome that paralyzed me at various points in my twenties has once again raised its ugly head. Every day is a decision to contend against the lies that undermine my dreams. The sense of inadequacy and unworthiness that plagued me when I was out of work have become familiar tools that the accuser wields against me in this current season.
But I remind myself that I am not the same woman I was ten years ago. In 2014, as a new wife and mom, the enemy found a gaping hole of insecurity in my identity as a wife and mom whose primary role was at home and outside of the marketplace. My lack of salary convinced me back then that I had little worth to my husband and my family. I have since healed my understanding of my identity, my worth, and my indispensability inside of my home. The enemy was trying old doors to see if I had changed the locks or if they would continue to yield him access. It is an honor to be equipped to pull down imaginations and everything that exalts itself against the knowledge of Christ in my identity.
My surrender in 2024 is to the God who can make beautiful things out of the ashes of my life. Mourning the loss of my career from 2023 into 2024 reminded of King David of the Bible when the child he bore in adultery with Bathsheba was sick. David lamented as the child struggled to live. One would have thought that David himself would die with the child. But when the child finally passed, King David got up, washed his face, ate, and continued on with the business of serving the Lord and ruling as king. I was afraid to mourn my career loss because I thought if I started, I would never stop. And grieving so vehemently over something that the Lord had allowed seemed sinful. But the Lord Himself showed me that if I did not grieve properly, I would not heal. There was a way to grieve my sense of loss that honored my humanity and yet did not dishonor my God.
So, that is what I did. Grieving well allowed me to see the way forward when the Lord said to embark on a brand-new career in which I have no experience whatsoever.
I am still on this journey, believing the Lord for something glorious in the unknown of the future after relinquishing the familiar past. The testimonies that come after obedience are not yet fully manifested in this new lane. I am still waiting, trusting, and applying for my first big break in a new career. But I trust God to complete the good work He has started. The great surrender of 2024 may well continue into 2025, but I trust the God who caused me to defeat the lion and bear in the wilderness that He will bring down whatever giant stands in the way of His plans for my life in the new year.
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