Letting Go

Luke 9:22-25

Trudie Goff

It was fortuitous that I would randomly select the theme of “letting go” as my Lenten devotion to write this year.  For me personally, the year of 2009 was a year of letting go of so much…people both in body and spirit, and really, letting go of my own will and finally letting God lead my life.  This exercise of writing has honestly has helped me to reflect and see God’s handiwork in guiding my spirit back in alignment with His vision for my life.  The by-product has been peace to my weary soul and a sense of purpose in the many avenues of my life as a wife, mother, teacher, friend, only child and daughter to my aging mother, and counterpart to society.  I feel reconnected to God and am asking daily for Him to allow me to be his disciple in all I do.

The verses from Luke 9: 23-24 say, “Then He said to them all, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those of who want to their save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.”  I can’t think of two more important verses that help me to reflect on the essentialness of giving our lives over to the one who wonderfully made us and to live our lives for His purposes.

But it is easier said than done because real life steps in and rears its’ somewhat ugly head and can knock us off the course and path we walk upon.  Life happens…losses too many to count, tragedy, sorrow, and sadness. We all have been there in one way or another.  

I questioned it many times…where was God in the midst of all of my heartache and confusion?   Of course He was there. I had been through so much in years prior being dealt a healthcare crisis in my own life several years prior.  God remained more than faithful in saving my physical life and guarding my family as we went through the darkest nights of our souls. 

My father died of cancer on New Year’s Eve last year.  Less than one week later, a dear friend of nearly 22 years died a horrible death to cancer as well.  I also had been experiencing many challenges both professionally and personally.  My peace of mind was challenged and I was washed over in a sea of grief and total confusion. 

God continually was whispering to me literally, “Let go.”  And at times, I did and other times, I clung to my own understanding of situations and it got me nowhere very quickly. 

It reminded metaphorically of my college summers of working at Lutherdale Bible Camp in Elkhorn, WI.   We had a “ropes course” that the junior and senior high campers would spend time in teams doing various activities like scaling walls, climbing trees, and doing the “trust fall.”  For me, the “trust fall” was truly the hardest of the ropes course challenges.  Each of us took a turn to stand on an old log backwards with all of the counselors standing behind us with outstretched arms for us to fall into.

You simply were to let go, trust and fall into their arms.  There was no danger of being dropped. These were trusted and kind friends.  Yet, I was completely petrified.  When I finally allowed myself the courage to actually fall, it was an amazing feeling.  It was like all the heaviness in my heart had melted away. Peace and trust abounded.  I often go back to that moment as a 20 year old young woman and remember looking up at all of my friends and smiling. They cheered because they knew how very difficult it was for me to go off of that old log.   God must smile at us when we finally just fall off the old logs of our lives and allow him to replace that mistrust with trust.

My good friend Margie always called this “letting go and letting God” a “freefall into grace.”  My own faith journey has been many ups and downs of letting go.  But this time, at nearly 47 years old, I decided to surrender and “take up my cross for Christ.”

A book I can highly recommend that really aided my thinking and transformed how I got through this difficult period in my life is called How Can I Let Go If I don’t Know I’m Holding On?  Setting our Souls Free.  Written by a Christian writer named Linda Douty, I found myself drawn to her Godly words and insight.  

I would like to end this with a prayer she uses in her book from Kenya, United Methodist Hymnal:

PRAYER:“From the cowardice that dares not face new truth,

From the laziness that is contented with half-truth,

From the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,

Good Lord, deliver us….AMEN”

May God give you the courage to examine your hearts and spirits and to “let go”. Let Him bind up your wounds, dry your tears, and give you a better way to live.   Fall off of that log and into those loving arms of God’s grace.