Learning to Let Go

“The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.”

Job 1:21 KJV

It’s a bird!

It’s a plane!

It’s Jack flying as fast as he can after a wayward gummy bear!

I shuffle my socks quickly across the kitchen floor with my last bit of energy and pull it from his grasp. Nine month olds and un-chewable, dust bunny ridden gummy bears don’t mix. But he doesn’t understand this.

I pull the green bear from his chubby fingers. My heart returns to normal pace. Tiny tears fall. Jack looks up at me with reddened sea blue eyes and sadly babbles “Mine.”

My heart breaks for him. I know he wanted that gummy bear. I know he’s thinking I’m the Wicked Witch of the West for taking it away. But no matter how hard it is to say “No” to this face . . .

I have to make him let go. I do it because I love him.

I ponder on the things I’ve taken away from Jack just in this week alone . . .

A Littlest Pet Shop tiger . . .

Dad’s fallen screwdriver.

A broken Panama City seashell.

Old pieces of Subway roast beef that toppled from the trash. (Jack has a three day rule for foods found in the floor. 🙂

In witnessing his sturdy grip on these things that are better left let go . . . I realize that Jack hasn’t fallen far from the tree. I think of things that I too work so hard to reach. Things I feel obligated to. Things I really like, things that make me feel safe, comfortable and successful. I watch as God pulls them from my hands. I sit in tears and cry “MINE!”

He doesn’t understand does He? I need this! I want this! It belongs to me!

But God gently wrestles with me . . . “Let go.”

Though we’ve been here before . . . I seem to forget with each new circumstance that God knows what He’s doing. That it all always works out. That He closes windows to open doors no man can shut.

I can’t always see what things are good for me even when they feel good inside my hands and even better inside my life. He knows when I’ve picked up a good Cheerio . . . and He also knows when I’ve picked up a Fruit Loop that the Chihuahua pulled from the neighbor’s trash bin. He sees the dangers of sharp emotions and situations that could cut me deep.

I reach for the thing I want . . .

But it’s no good.

God slides across the kitchen, socks sliding quickly against the freshly swept floor. He lifts me swiftly. The no good thing falling to the wayside. I protest . . . But He does it because He loves me.

I sit in my husband’s comfy Lazy Boy and shut my eyes for just a brief moment. I reopen them to Jack our adorable bottomless pit who has shoved yet another mystery crumb into his tiny mouth. I gently wrestle with him “Let go.” Just then, I spot my favorite cross hanging by the lampshade. I survey my heart for things that I know I too must give up. My heart aches . . .but the spirit speaks. My grasp loosens in anticipation for God’s something better lined up in the cupboard.

I lift Jack. God lifts me.

God beckons softly “Let go.”

What has God asked you to give up? What is the “something better” that came along?

Brooke Keith

Have a steamy cup of chocolate coffee with Brookie and the girls at http://internetcafedevotions.com/