How do You Let Go?

How do you let go? It is a very hard question. I know I do not let go very well. I am going to start to ramble here, but sometimes it is how I manage to get my thoughts out. I have a friend who I care very much about. She has been so wonderful and helpful, and of course stupid me, I thought I had developed feelings for her. I can look back now, after some clearing of my mind and a whole lot of prayer and I realize that I never did really like her that way, but I still feel hurt that we don't spend time like we used to as friends.

I mean we still play some, but it is always with other people and never just us. I don't blame her for not wanting to play, but it hurts that my friend won't just be my friend. And then one of my other very good friends, is too busy to play, and it sometimes seems too busy to just talk. I feel like all my friends, one right after the other, are pulling away from me.

So what does this have to do with letting go? I have no clue. I guess I just need to learn how to let them go. I guess its more that I NEED to let go. But how do I let go of people I care about? What do I give up on what made us friends in the first place? I don't know. It seems that so often in our lives, people come into it like a storm, fierce and crazy and get so into the relationship that after the storm has hit, there isn't much to do from there. We end up drifting at sea until we just end up drowning.

That sadly is a truth about friends. Some of us will just drown to our friends and we will no longer exist the way we did before. So there is really just one thing to do and let them go. What good is it to hang on to a dead body in the middle of the ocean when all it will end up doing is dragging us down to the bottom. But it keeps coming back to how do we let them go.

Some will say its easiest to end it with a fight or something that is a rather sharp and final end, but what of the friendship? Did it mean so little, you just want to cut that hand off that is clinging to you? That's not it, though a final end would be easy. I would think that if I was just to quietly drift away, not be there so much, less texts, less overall talking, it would be easy to pass them off to another ship in the sea. But that too feels like it is just pretending not to care. Which, for me, causes me more hurt because I play it through in my head over and over again and I very much care about them.

Only thing I can think is kind of combine everything into one and wrap it all up with Jesus, place it at the foot of the cross and leave it for Jesus. If you really wanna take a deep look at it all, the reason we lose ourselves in books, movies, video games, hobbies, friends, or anything else, is to find a place we feel happy, that we belong, and to feel special. I keep going over the painful thoughts of why my friendship is on the rocks, and wanting so much to make things better, that I let go of the only anchor that keeps me from floating away, the bloody and amazing cross of Christ.

It is at the foot of the cross that we find ourselves. It is there we find everything we have ever wanted. We find ourselves, we find happy, peace, belonging. We find a special-ness that cannot be found anywhere else we look. We find Jesus there. The only way I could ever let go of my friends, is to cling so tightly to my Jesus, with white knuckles in desperation. Jesus is the only friend who you can go to over the same thing, time and time again, and he will never get tired of hearing from you.

Jesus is the only friend, who will let you cry as long as you need to and never complain about a wet shoulder. He will give you a hug so big and tight that all the pain in the world couldn't stay in you. He is the only friend that can complete you. And the best part of it all, Jesus wants not only to be your best friend, but also wants to be your hope, your dreams, your joy, your desire, your love, your peace, your go to man, your Savior, and your God. Jesus wants to be your everything, if you will only give everything you are to him.

It is hard to let Jesus be everything to you. It is true, we are physical and God is spiritual. But if God is your everything, and his spirit lives, in part, in every single bit of matter, then even a gentle breeze is like a hug from the Almighty. The lick of your puppy can be like a kiss from our Lord, though that is kinda a sloppy kiss. But anyways, we each need to find our way to let Jesus be our everything and give our everything to him.

It does seem odd that we wouldn't let him be our everything, but you can see it in the churches, other Christians, the whole world, we don't want Jesus to be everything because we are not willing to give all we are to him. We hold back something, maybe even the smallest mote of ourselves, but we hold it back and keep it locked away from Him. If we can find our way to give that last bit, that last tiny mote of our lives to Jesus, we can let go of all the earthly pain we feel. Let go of the friends that are slowly dragging us down, or maybe even pull them out of the water so we both can have everything with Jesus.

So to answer the question I started off with, we can only let go of whatever, by clinging to the Cross of Christ and to Jesus and giving all we are to him in exchange for him being our everything we need. It for sure is not a small task, and not easy, but if we manage it, we can let go, and be free.

Choices

There was a man who was walking down the road when he saw something shimmering on the side of the road. When he went to look at it, it moved away from him. So he moved closer and this time, he managed to catch a glimpse of it. He could tell it was beautiful, but he still could not see it completely. So he ran after it. The faster he ran the faster it would flee from him. Every time he got close, it gave him a glimpse of how great it could be which only made him want it even more.

The man spent the rest of his life chasing the shimmering object. He knew how beautiful it was, if he only could see it and touch it. It was the single thing he wanted more than anything in the world. He would chase it until he died.

Some people like to think that the man managed to grab it at the end. Some people think that it was never even obtainable in the first place. While others think that he was a fool for ever chasing it to begin with. This man was not the only one who ran, there were a few people, who saw it, knew what it could be as well, and chased it with him. But how things go in stories like this, they never saw the man. They always kept looking at the object and never to the people beside them, or to where the object came from. They always thought they were alone.

These people spend their whole lives chasing after things that don't belong to them, without ever stopping for a moment to look at what is being offered to them. Right behind each of the people running after the shimmering object, was a man who had bags of them. He would hold up signs for them, he would do miracles for them. Then at one point he saw that these people were in horrible danger and they could not see it coming toward them. So he ran faster than they were, as fast as any man could, and put himself in the way of the danger, making sure everyone of those people, who were still focused on the shimmering object, were safe. And he continued to work for them, making sure he had a bag of shimmering objects for each person out there.

Occasionally one of the people would turn their heads just a tiny bit, and notice that the man was there with a bag. They would stop and look in the bag. He would hand them the bag and say, "I have been trying to show you this for a long time." When the person would look into the bag, everything they had ever hoped, wished, dreamt, wanted for, and things they never even knew they needed, wanted, hoped, wished for, or dreamt of, was in the bag. And they would fall to their knees, smiling and crying. Because in that bag, was something bigger and better than anything. After a while the bag began to grow. It grew so much that the person could now go inside and enjoy what was in there. For what was in the bottom of the bag was everything. And the man stood there with them and told them, welcome home.

For me, it seems like I have chased the shimmering object my entire life. I catch a glimpse of it so I keep running and running, but never looking where I should be. The object changes depending on the person. For me it is friendship, belonging, love. For others it could be money, or drugs. Anything that keeps us focused on what is ahead of us instead of where we should be heading.

Jesus is holding a bag of everything we could ever desire, waiting for us to come and take it. But it has to be our choice to take the bag. What good would a companion be if they were forced into coming with you? That is the hard part of being a Christian. God loves every single sinner so much that he sent himself as his son to die for our sins. It was a gift, for everyone, but we need to accept the gift. We need to choose to be with him.

Found on this page.

So many of us fall into depression, or hate, or gluttony, or lust and we keep our eyes on the shimmering object and we forget that Jesus is there. But on top of that, we also forget that all the things we fall into, they are choices we made. We choose to be depressed, we choose to hate, we choose to indulge ourselves with food, or alcohol, or sex. We choose to chase what we cannot have, because we feel we deserve it.

I am often at fault with this. I feel I deserve a wonderful woman who gets me, laughs at my off kilter jokes. Understands when I make a very obscure reference to some nerdy thing. she can handle my angry moments, and embraces me when I am an ass. But I really don't deserve her. Because my anger is often an indulgence. My ass-ness is often me celebrating being an ass. How can I deserve a perfect woman when I am not willing to give up my own faults. How can I deserve a perfect God when I will not give up myself and follow him fully.

And I guess that brings me to the choices I have to make. For me to deserve what God has to offer, I should be more like his son. For him to bring me the girl I so desire, I have to get ready for her. I need to give up being an ass, being angry, give up my depression to the only God who lives. It will be a hard journey, and I believe it is one we all need to take. Give ourselves up to our crosses every day, so we can live with Him.

I deserve death, I got life from my God. I have been given the chance to love him with all I am, because he so loved me first. I will fail, because I am man, but I will continue to work at choosing to be happy, work at choosing to follow with all I am. Start with me. Everyone of you who read this, I invite you to start choosing to be happy, content, fulfilled, and loved because God has all that and so much more waiting in a bag of shimmering things just for you.