Let.GO.

One of the hardest things in life is learning to let go.

I’m not a parent but I’ve heard that the hardest part is not in having or taking care of kids. Childbirth, sleepless nights, endless nappies, school fees, teenage mood swings, discipline, sacrifice and everything in between. These are not the most difficult parts of parenthood.

The hard part is letting go of them.

The bumper sticker that says, “Let go and let God” isn’t a cliché.

It needs to be read and understood a thousand times more for what it truly means.

Letting go is not passive or inactive.

It means trust.

Having enough faith to let go.

I’ve been brought up as a dreamer. My Irish DNA speaks of attempting the impossible, always looking ahead, never giving up. I moved to Johannesburg with great strivings and ideals, allowing an image of what I desired deep within to build up in my head… and heart. And my admission, perhaps parallels to yours, is in wanting my significance to be found within a one-day-testimony of making it against all odds. The underdog finds glory. The small-town-girl makes her mark. Adding what I liked to the “one day” scenario when meeting or simply seeing someone in a spot I admired. I grasped so tightly to this goal and fought so hard to make it happen. As much as it was, and still is, my absolute passion – it became something so much more. Something that was my significance, my title, my initials…

Oh how toxic.

Planning my life as if I control the universe.

The weight of responsibility, the turmoil and pain in holding-on to make life’s dreams happen is overwhelming. Bearing it for the sake of broadening these skinny shoulders.

Drinking it up baby as there is no time for later.

I’ve learnt the hardest way. The way most of us are familiar with. The way that leads us to sitting in the darkness of a place we feel to be an ambush by someone high in the sky. Declaring His sovereignty when it makes us feel better but ignoring it when it matters most. He speaks everyday.

Opening your heart to the wrong person because you want marriage more than His perfect timing. Pushing for employment opportunities without proper experience. Moving cities with the desire for “big money”.

Oh to unwrap the bittersweet bubble wrap of tragic emptiness.

Do you ever wonder why Mick Jagger’s “I can’t get no satisfaction” had eighty-five thousand people chanting along? He had precisely the same conclusion that the writer of Ecclesiastes had. Delicious food, great sex, boundless fame, endless wealth, enormous power – don’t deliver. When our ultimate idols leave us begging to get on the next train.

There is true beauty in the midst of surrender.

I’ve heard that some people hold onto mistakes and replay them over and over again, allowing feelings of shame and regret to shape their actions in the present. Clinging to frustration and worry about the future, is an act of fixation actually giving people power. We are desperate for the next fix of control.

So I decided to google some advice on letting go and found a few suggestions as follows:

Channel your discontent into an immediate positive action, use meditation or yoga to bring you into the present moment, make a list of accomplishments and add to it daily, focus all your energy on something you can actually control, give yourself a vent window, remind yourself that anger hurts more than the person who upset you, metaphorically throw it away, use a stress ball, express yourself vocally, wear a rubber band on your wrist and gently flick it when you start obsessing on angry thoughts, visualize an empowered you, reward yourself for small acts of acceptance, replace emotional thoughts with facts, take a sauna break, imagine your life 10 years from now, organize your desk, laugh it out.

I also stumbled upon Dr Phil’s advice on letting go (of love of course), “Make a firm decision. Do what you have to do. Say no. Get out of my life. Stay away from me. Don’t call me. Focus on yourself.”

It’s a rather strange tug-of-war life we live, vacillating between good and bad, struggling to hold on and let go, attempting to understand the distinction between faithing and surrendering. Moving through gradual moments of release and then straight into catapulted clutching.

“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Jesus Christ.” (Phil 4:6)

There is a song enjoying huge radio play and doing well on charts around the world at the moment called “sweet nothing” by Calvin Harris and Florence Welch. Although it is a dance song it is quiet depressing as it is speaking about how the partner in a relationship is offering nothing in return to the love of him/ her. The lyrics go:

“So I put my faith in something unknown, I’m living on such sweet nothing, but I’m trying to hope with nothing to hold, I’m living on such sweet nothing.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17ozSeGw-fY

Giving up speaks of hopelessness. Giving in and shortchanging yourself.

Letting go is placing hope in someone or something else. Not being attached to a result.

Allowing hope and faith to grow in a person.

Not a train. Or a dream.

Allowing it grow in Him. Jesus Christ.

“We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.”

(Hebrews 6: 19)

Perhaps there is something you have been holding on to for years, months, weeks or days. Perhaps the pain of holding on is greater than the pain of letting go. Perhaps right now, in this hour, you will begin to loosen the grip you hold on so many elements of this short life. Perhaps freedom is inextricably bound to letting go.

Define me. I dare you.

"Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot, others transform a yellow spot into the sun."

You seem pretty convinced about me.

I don’t fit into your true preference of a person to speak to. I’m a little more desperate than most. You say you like people but you aren’t so sure about me. You seem to enjoy showing people that you like helping them but you wouldn’t take a step towards me when my hands were held out. You say that any cause is worth the time but my heart isn’t enough of a cause for you to care. I live in a world different to yours but then again – we were separated from birth. You had a childhood. I have been misunderstood for most of mine.  

To be honest, I’m not too sure what it feels like to be a child.

I see situations, people and material things very differently to you. Sometimes, when there isn’t any traffic, I stare silently into the horizon. I dream of stepping into your world, or perhaps just you understanding mine. If you dared to ask me to explain. I find things overwhelming that you seem to take in your stride. You seem consumed by self awareness and analyzing everything.

I get excited over the least of things that you would find strange. The joy I get from tree shade or a couple of silver coins. My tear ducts never work. I think they died when both my parents were killed in a Xenophobic attack. But, like you, I also get mad and sad. I often hum or sing when strangers pull swear or pull faces at me. People think I am absent-minded as I walk up and down the corner of this street.

I fight for my existence.

You don’t appreciate yours.

I hold a distinctive pattern of drinking and sniffing whatever I can, whenever I can. However, believe it or not, I’m not an evil person. I’d gladly give you whatever I have or what I don’t yet have. You don’t realize how the way you ignore me hurts my soul. Perhaps it is my emaciated body, balding head and my face ravaged by ulcers that increases the chasm between us…

Large Crowds followed Jesus as he came down the mountainside. Suddenly, a man with leprosy approached him and knelt before him. “Lord”, the man said, “If you are willing, you can heal me and make me clean.” Jesus reached out and touched him. “I am willing”, he said. “Be healed!” And instantly the leprosy disappeared.

(Matthew 8: 1 – 3)

The Jewish attitude toward those with leprosy was that if you were infected you were unclean. They were required to cry out “Unclean, unclean!” warning their neighbors lest unwitting citizens accidently touched them they were religiously defiled themselves. The leper had to live alone and must live outside of the camp. If you got within a stone’s throw of someone so diseased was to jeopardize your own righteousness and reputation.

Bandanna over his face, hair dirty and mattered, clothed in rags, shouting “unclean, unclean.”

The man comes to Jesus and what does Jesus do?

He reaches out and touches him. The beauty is beyond words. 

He doesn’t NEED to touch him as there are many accounts of Jesus healing people by just saying one word. However, no one has touched this leper for a very long time. He is starved of human touch. And now Jesus is defiled in the eyes of the proper authorities. Jesus is just getting his ministry going. He has a message but credibility is fairly important at this point especially since he has begun to challenge the cherished notions of the pontifical tyrants. Jesus is almost guaranteeing he will be disqualified. Emotionally, politically, this would be the social equivalent of a rising priest or pastor giving their most important message of the year, then stepping outside the front door of the church, lighting a cigarette, and taking a good long shot of tequila straight from the bottle as the congregation files past.

Metaphorically speaking.

Jesus didn’t seem to care. He cares very deeply about the right things. He knows exactly what he is doing. The risks Jesus is willing to take with his reputation are simply stunning.

Jesus doesn’t define the leper by his disease. It is through this highly controversial act of extreme kindness, I can see him encouraging us to respond to something…

“Define me. I dare you.”

the.meaning.of.courage.

“I am convinced there are many ways to be brave. The easiest to recognize is a willingness to take physical risks that most people would not consider. One of the salient characteristics of all creatures is behaviour that conforms to a desire for self-preservation. In my view, this tendency is virtually an evolutionary imperative, to survive and reproduce. So what is it that impels some people to risk their survival on behalf of others or even in the name of an idea?”

Courage?

Glimpsed in the hero’s eye of a scene out of a Oscar winning movie.

Interpreted in moments portrayed from a 16^th century battlefield.

Found in the hearts of Spiderman, Hancock, Gladiator, Guinevere, Robin Hood, Braveheart, Troy...

But never fully understood by a 21^ST century middle-class citizen? Right?

Everyday life happens to all of us. Going about doing what you do best. Moving in and out of deadlines and against never-ending time constraints. Finding sustained joy in the impact of truly living. Working through ever-mountainous regions of character flaws but holding the sure hope of complete transformation. One day. Seeking sunshine and beautiful rolling hills. Strolling and sometimes running to keep up with this ever-demanding world. Working for a solid salary with the fixed focus of being able to survive.

And then, without warning, it hits.

Whirlwind. 

Pouring rain. 

Flooded roads. 

Sight-shocking lightening. 

Earth-shattering thunder. 

Daunting darkness.

Caught in the eye of a storm you know must pass.

It’s that telephone call that leaves your phone in pieces on the floor. That conversation you didn’t expect. The devastation of a situation you cannot control. The aching loss of someone or something. A matrix of disease and destruction that leaves you questioning the meaning of life itself and seeking out an answer. Any answer. The apple cart has been upset and the resolution remains undefined. It is never straightforward. Never scientific. Like some sick experiment gone wrong. The mystery of our existence.

Whatever it is – is a giant in the form of an obstacle to overcome. Imagine how David felt? An insignificant 18 year old boy who comes out to face Goliath with no armor, no sword, no training. A pathetic sling. That’s all. Like Moses with a stick to part an ocean of escape from a massive Egyptian army.

Goliath falls. The red sea parts.

Perhaps courage is the God-given confidence and momentum to speak and act when standing in the face of your goliath.

Courage by definition is the ability to face difficulty or danger or uncertainty or pain without being overcome with fear or being deflected from a certain course of action. Courage is the force inside of us that allows us to plot through a path and be undaunted by opposition. To not be swayed to the left or right.

There are many ways to be brave. It is not confined to one experience or moment of anti-conformity. It is not inherent within the DNA of a few chosen. It is not simply about being that individual who goes against the grain. I see it as more of a construction site in building one experience upon another. There’ll be opportunities to stand out and rise up. 

However, there are more times in life where all we can or are able to do is breathe and continue with some kind of hope that seasons change. To move on with faith when disappointment has inevitably bashed some part of us to the ground.

Beautiful. Outlaw

So you’re confused. Tired. Exhausted. Longing for more or something different but never really sure what that looks like. You’re done with trying, running, longing, serving, giving and making a new hundred-and-one resolutions to be better than who you are right now. Suffocating in religious legalism. Trying so hard to be average and yet constantly drowning in dreams to be larger-than-life. Stumbling along by experiencing Jesus only occasionally. Its like we’ve been going to school for a decade and yet remain illiterate. Or referring someone you love to a doctor and yet despite treatment they not only failed to recover from cancer but contracted HIV, hepatitis, and gangrene. A system of falsehood that disappoints frustrates and leaves you limping down a road of endless works. Consumed with a nonstop performance-orientated existence. Manipulated by preaches on faithfulness and commitment that has wound you into pleasing man for years by a good attendance schedule. Craving a genuine heart-altering life of impact. A life where people see Him and not you. A life where His life flows tangibly in and through you. You’re sick of the one stringed guitar, the note being banged out for years. The religious fog of a two-dimensional Jesus who is portrayed by a chorus of unanimous voices we no longer argue with. Our pet hamsters have more personality than the Christ we live for. Love and compassion are virtues that turn sickly sweet, soft and limp. We’ve created a vacuum in which we misunderstand him. Despite the vandalizing of Jesus Christ by religion and the world, he is still alive and very much himself. Jesus has a tone of voice, something deep in his eyes, the lift of an eyebrow, a suppressed smile, tilt of the head, an unflinching gaze. He is playful, cunning, fierce, impatient with all that is religious, kind, creative, truthful, blunt, emotional, nonmanipulative, sensitive, generous, compassionate, irreverent, intentional, funny, frequently embroiled in conflict – most of which he provokes himself (healing on the Sabbath). He’s found on the beach, catching his boys fishing, filling their empty nets and then having them to breakfast. The relief comes in like a sea breeze on a muggy summer day suffocating with the smell of mud and dead fish. Because it’s an answer to a question we didn’t dare ask – that God himself knows how and when to be playful. With us. He isn’t some religious, ethereal, ghost-like personality gazing off into realms unknown, the image of Christ conjured up by so many paintings and Sunday School art. He isn’t a bizarre interpretation. The Gospels are filled with beautiful and haunting descriptions of the humanity of Jesus. He is one mighty happy man. He is a man on a fire. He is a man on a mission. He is a man who needs to get away and have room to grieve. Life affected Jesus. He will always stop whatever he is doing to attend to someone in need. He never did anything halfheartedly. He is the man who conquered death, ransomed mankind, been restored to His father, his friends, and the world he made. He was the hunted who became the hunter, as Jesus was crucified and descended into hell personally to demand the keys from Satan. He faced a creature way more terrifying than anything you’ve met in your nightmares and makes him bend the knee. He is the afterglow of the greatest triumph of the greatest battle in the history of the cosmos. And he created laughter. Isaac means “laughter”. God gave that name to the son of the arthritic patriarch and his wrinkled wife.

We don’t need any more speculation and debate. 

We need the power of his indwelling life, shaping our personality, healing our brokenness, enabling us to live as he did.

We need Jesus himself.

And you can have him.

Really. 

(Inspired by John Eldredge's book - "Beautiful Outlaw")

I'd. Like. You. To.

Id like you to…

Tell me im incredible when I know im not.

Open the car door no matter what.

Hold my hand.

Go somewhere grand.

Dance with me in the street.

To the sound of our own beat.

Laugh with me.

Climb a tree.

Paint the nails on my left hand.

Spend a day driving into nowhere land.

Sing like a rockstar wherever we travel..

Allowing "the road less taken" to unravel.

Phone me.

Dream of the impossible to be.

Pull my hair back when my hands are full.

Always let unconditional love, passion and laughter rule.

Learn my brain for secret conversations.

Make a home out of a shack or a mansion.

Buying french wine and choosing destinations on a map.

Talking deep as I lay or sit upon your lap.

Promise that laughter will cement our friendship.

That we will have our own code names of companionship.  

Call a time-out, a pause...

And Kiss me just because.

Don't sit under the oak tree with anyone else but me.

Take it when I give you the third degree.

Wrestle and don’t let me win.

Guide me when my world is dim.

Listen when I speak.

Comment when I need.

Climb on the roof with me to stare at the stars.

Make up stories about chasing cars.

Always be my prince, my pride.

Keep me forever more as your bride.

Id like you to find me irresistible…

Unforgettable

Incomprehensible

Exceptional

Inexplicable

…With your heart being completely intentional.

Id like you to be different

… from the rest,

To be convinced that for each other

… we are best.