homeschooled By GOD – Lesson Four: Let Go
Lessons Learned in the Classroom of Life
new YEAR, new YOU
January 10th, 2022
Psalm 40:1-3, ‘I waited and waited, and waited some more, for God. At last, He looked; finally, He listened. He lifted me out of the ditch (the slimy pit), pulled me from deep mud. He stood me on a solid rock to make sure I wouldn’t slip. He taught me how to sing the latest God-song, a praise-song to our God. More and more people are seeing this: they enter the mystery, abandoning themselves to God.’
LESSON FOUR: LET GO
Two (too) tiny words nearly impossible to ‘do’—let go.
As parents, we struggle to let go of our children, sometimes even from the moment they are born. We fight against the first day of school, and the last. And everyday in between, whether it’s entrusting them to make their own path and friends, and especially when they travel on their friend’s paths. Remember their first sleepover at a friend’s house; the first night they spent away from you? And for the broken family caught in the clenches of divorce—letting them go for court-ordered parenting time. When they leave for college. Their wedding night when they drive away in the car sporting ‘Just Married’ written on outside orifices. As he pulls the car up at the hospital entrance and loads Mommy out of the wheelchair into the front seat, then, for the first time, fitting the most delicate and precious infant ever born into a carseat. What happens when the years reverse and we must let go of a beloved parent as they breathe their last breath, or perhaps we realize we must let go of the ideal our parent might live forever, as they stall while enduring with their mind, health or even simply life.
Maybe letting go means releasing an out-of-reach expectation of ourselves. Beautiful You, I don’t know about you, but for me, my expectation of myself is insane. I require something of myself that is incomprehensible of anyone else. But, hey, I’m in charge, right? so I can expect…anything. It is humanly impossible and unattainable, I learned I had to let go of something so unfathomable and literally impossible; I had to be realistic. About myself and about others. We have a gracious Father Who parents us through the realism of life. We sometimes expect things of our own selves that we would never for one moment expect of our children or loved ones. We look in a mirror of defeat and discouragement, and chastise ourselves, the question why we failed…ourselves. But realistically speaking, how did we require of oneself what is not navigable. Please remember He is our Father, and we are His children. He is a good, good Father, so that means He raises up good, good children, whom He believes in and stands beside.
Perhaps letting go requires us unclenching our fists around the unhealthy relationships we hold onto. Oh Lord, have I held onto, and mourned, my unhealthy relationships! I may spend the rest of my life not understanding the relationships in my life and why they ended, nor what I could do differently, if anything, to fix them, and finally, resting in the grace of God that when I said I let go of everything and released everything to His care, I truly did…let go, to place in His hands to do and work in whatever manners would be for the good of so many and for His magnificent glory.
Letting go is full of action. It is also full of pain. I also don’t think it is possible to let go of anything if you haven’t first trust Him or been obedient. I share with people repeatedly today about the Lord’s requirements of me in order for His deliverance of me, and you know, I believe it was a Word He homeschooled me with, which He spoke to me, that He meant for many. We are to trust Him, to be obedient, and to let go, and when we follow His instructions, He graduates us out of a place we have been struggling in.
I feel freer today. It makes no sense because I let much of everything go that carried meaning and meant life to me. He is a good, good Father Who is as close as the Whisper of His name; He leads beside still waters where He restores and revives me, and in Him, I have more than enough.
