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.