Christian Living

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I know I am supposed to let go.
How it came to my attention I will never reveal, nor to be honest, do I really know. I just knew in that moment, that I wanted it all to fit in neat little piles so that I did not have to deal with pieces flying around. Where I didn’t have to see the mess in which my heart was found.

What if you should see my writings on this matter?

That I might have left something of myself unboxed, or unpackaged is unthinkable. To be exposed like that, is easily my worst nightmare. This careful mask has taken years to master. Most would never imagine what lay beneath it.

It started innocently enough, the odd tossed word of hope. Now and then a simple “Trust me.” I had not been able to trust anyone for years. I had too many broken promises and disloyal friends that left me skeptical.
How it would come to mean so much to Trust. How could I know what I know now, with hindsight’s wondrous perspective?

My mask intact I had walked along just fine until you required so much more of me. I had been hidden in my own world, a bookish world where mythical beings exist as friends, where neither adult, nor peer could cause me harm. I was safe in my world.
You required of me to step out of it, to take a risk. It was not in me to do that. I had a nice ordered world, safe; with boundaries and rules so rigid even I could not sink through the gaps.

Then it started. You said “Let go.” And I fought with every ounce of my existing being the idea that I could relinquish all I knew. That it was what you required of me had not gone unnoticed on my account, and I let go in places – the tiniest safest places. Deep hurt burrowed deeper into my wounded soul, and though you knew that, still I hung on. I did not let go.

In those dark moments, where I removed my mask, safely unseen by anyone, I found the space around me pressed in on all sides. Deathly afraid I clung to you. You stroked my forehead tenderly, almost pleading to give it over, to let go. My strongest character is my greatest weakness. My grief over the pain and past consumes me, and I cannot let it go.

This journey we walk together, you and I, has been a long eighteen years and counting. Young by some standards, you know right deep inside my heart that I feel old – as though I have seen the world pass in silence and pain that no child should see. I have turned to 20 and now past over to nearer 30. I have learnt many things in my time with you.

Still, in the dark nights my grief consumes. The loss of ones childhood, shattering of ones dreams never leaves. Letting go is an art form, and I am learning still. I am merely an apprentice and not a great artist. I have finally opened my arms, my clenched fists held high in surrender. I have let go. Given over control; given everything I have – my life, my heart my all. Still I am learning to let go.

Be gentle O, Lord for I am but a traveler. A journey maker and a pilgrim on a road that is full of rocks and holes. I stumble and trip as it is my nature to look forward and not mind my feet and where I go. The bags I carry are sometimes too much and often not even my own, but slowly, as the sun lights my weary face I am learning. It really is as simple as letting go.

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