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Letting Go Of Those We Love

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It is hard to let go of the people I love.  I would rather be challenged with letting go of something else.  A desire for a house with a bigger yard, a budding career, respect in my community.  Even if nothing I write ever gets picked up by a publisher I will adjust, but letting go of the people I love?  

 

Letting go of my children is hard.  I wish I could make their decisions for them.  The fact they are growing up unsettles me. It threatens the illusion of control I so desperately want to keep alive.  But sooner or later children grow up. Letting go now just means I choose sooner rather than latter.

 

Sometimes letting go is not optional.  Sometimes there is no adjustment period.  In the face of illness, injury, and death, we let go not because we want to, or have learned to,  but because we have to. The pretense that we can create the perfect life if only we can maintain control crumbles.  In these times we bypass the question of when we will we let go and move directly to the question of how will we let go.  The answer to this question is not a plan we formulate and then execute, it is a grace on which we depend daily.  

 

Heavenly Father, reminds us that  You know how hard it is to let go.  You did not have to give Adam and Eve wills of their own but You did.  Rather than force them to obey, You created them with the ability to choose obedience, or not.  Was this letting go because the joy and meaning of a chosen relationship trumped the surety of a forced relationship?  And was letting go of Your Son really the only way to bring them back? Help us in the hardest moments, to know that You know how hard it is to let go.  Shower us with the grace to choose to let go in ways we never could apart from You. Remind us that the only way to hold the joy and peace we long for in the turmoil of hanging on, is to let go.  You fill empty hands, not hands that are full. You are the God of magnificent resurrection, but only things which have died can be resurrected. Grant us grace to let go of our dreams, our plans, and even  the people we most love. Remind us that they do not free fall into nothing, they free fall into Your Almighty hands. Letting go is hard, but not letting go is harder, because in reality while people and things may be ours to hold for a moment, they are not ours.  So give us grace to let go. And as we let go, give us grace to hold on. To Your Promises. To Your Faithfulness. To Your Goodness. To Your Generosity and Immutability.  

 

When we let go of lesser things and hold to the Greater One, we find rest.  We do not have to figure out how to make things work out. We do not even have to figure out how to let go of trying to let go.  We rest in His goodness and His ability to open our hands to receive. It is hard to let go of those we love because of our love.  It is possible to let go of those we love because of His love.  

Praise be to God who lavishes His love on us, who even in our struggle to let go, never lets go of us!

 

“The eternal God is your dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms.”

Deuteronomy 33:27(ESV)

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