Letting Go

Monday, June 13, 2011

Letting go…

I hold on, tight, to everything I love. I don’t want it to slip through my fingers. I love my husband and hold him very tight, very close to me. My children are my heart and I squish them and hold them, as much as I can, as long as they will let me. I hold on to my extended family and love them, sometimes from a distance, but deep inside my heart.

This morning Elijah went to summer school at the local high school. A sophomore, my baby is a sophomore. The time has flown by and I am not sure where it went. He looks so confident, so sure. He is in a new environment, new town, new surroundings. I want to hold on to him. Keep him at home and home school him until he graduates, but chances are I would be writing this same thing 3 years from now about letting go. It is so hard. I want to savor every moment and I am nowhere near him. When he gets home from football or school, he gives me a 10 minutes lowdown of an 8 hour day. He is becoming a man and I have to let go so that he can walk all the way down the road to adulthood.

These are the moments I wish I had more kids. These are the days when my heart beats out of my chest in agony of having to let go. I ponder these things and wonder why I don’t want to let go. Where is the root of this? I wonder if it has to do with letting go of my dad when he and my mom were divorced. Maybe it has to do with letting go of believing my parents would get back together. Maybe it is letting go my siblings when I got married and left home when they were still young. Maybe it has to do with letting go with my father, who I try to make have a relationship with me. Perhaps it is letting go of the hope of being close to my extended family. Could it be letting go of the anger I had for the person who stole my innocence and then denied it. Or maybe it is letting go of the pain I have felt for so long. Maybe it is the pain that chiseled and defined me as a person. I have had to let go of that false identity and learn all over again who I really am.

The hardest thing I had to do so far was let go of my sister. I always had to protect, and encourage and inspire and push. Or did I? I had to let go of feeling responsible for her and just being her sister. I have an amazing relationship with her, but have had to learn how to redefine my relationship with her, hands open, instead of hands clenched.

So I hold tight, since so many things were taken out of my hand, without my consent. So many things in my life were ripped from me, leaving scars on my hands. I do not want to do that to my kids, my husband. I want to love them with open hands, open arms, so they have the freedom to be who God created them to be. I let go, because they belong to God, everything I hold tight to, belongs to God.

And now I am sitting here, wondering how I am going to let go of my mom. Learning how to let go of the control I think I have in her healing, in her health. I am a fighter and so believe that if I fight hard enough, I will conquer the cancer. But I am learning that it is not my fight. All I can do is pray, lover her and surrender the rest to God.

Funny, today my devotional was called “Letting Go is Hard.” Hmmmm…


Letting Go Is Hard


I am the LORD your God. You shall have no other gods before Me. Exodus 20:2-3


What are you needlessly holding on to so tightly today? Corrie Ten Boom once said that she learned to hold on to things loosely because it hurt too much when God pried them away. There are many things in our life that we get attached to: our work becomes our identity, our homes become our personality, our children become our goals. Sometimes it is hard to know who we were before these things came in and took over our lives. Where do I end and these things begin? When God challenges us on our priorities, it is difficult to truly understand what He is doing.


Because I work in the ministry, it gets confusing at times to separate my walk with the Lord from my work in the Lord. Recently, I have fallen in love with the plans of a ministry that truly helps people and honors God. I received His promises and His revelation of how to get the ministry started. Then, out of the blue, I had the sense that He wanted me to give the ministry to someone else to do. He used me to get the ministry going, but now He wanted me to let it go and not feel that I must do the work for Him. It was hard to let go because that ministry had become a key part of my life. How do you let go of something that God placed in your heart to do, so that you can honor God by not doing it?


We have to remember that nothing is ours. We are just stewards entrusted with the Master's gifts. Our calling is to be obedient. Our hearts are to have nothing above Him, including His ministries or His children or His blessings. These things become little gods in our lives if we are not careful, because even they can be all-consuming over dedicated devotion to Him. We are to align ourselves up with Jesus, to rest at His feet and to have a relationship with Him. Jesus wants you, not what you can do!


Lord, thank You that You don't want my attention divided. I am sorry that I fall in love with the blessings You have given me to a point of missing Your will. Help me to walk in Your paths and stay in step with Your call. You have given me everything I have and I give it all back to You. Be glorified in me, Lord. I know I can't let go on my own, so I will pray for Your guidance. May I be an open vessel for You, only allowing what You desire to flow through me in whatever timing You want it to flow. Thank You for reminding me that nothing that I own is really is mine: work, family, accomplishments, possessions. It is all Yours. I look around me this moment and think of all the blessings You have provided, reminding myself that none of it is mine to keep. Father, I just want to be a faithful steward of everything You have provided me, offering it all back to You in some way. Show me how I am to do that today. I want to use what you have provided me to glorify You. Amen.


Original source: Daily Disciples