By Sister Mary Scholastica, O.C.D.
So much of our life consists of learning to let go. With or without our consent things happens. Letting go of our expectations, plans, perspectives, thoughts, feelings, memories – letting go happens with all the stages of life in basic human growth from birth to death. Letting go of what was to allow what could be. Letting go is an integral part of life.
Yet, why is it that when we need to “let go”, a spirit of resistance rises within us. We fight hard to hang on to what we know and are comfortable with. The tighter we hang on, the more painful our grasp becomes, and it starts to weigh us down. Heavily. It limits our ability to receive, to grow.
Reflecting on this and growing in this knowledge does not make it necessarily easier. However, it does allow us to process the pain of change, the pain of letting go and prepares us to daily trust a little more in the Lord. To be in a stance of receiving versus resisting and fighting can transform your life here on this earth. Every moment of letting go prepares us for THE letting go when we transition from this life to the next. This moment awaits us all without fail, without exception.
In many respects, it is a mercy that all of life prepares us for this. As St. Thérèse says: “This world is your ship, not your home” and St. Francis tells us: “It is in dying that we are born to eternal life”. The moments of “dying to ourselves” each day better dispose us to receive God, neighbor and our own selves with the clarity of vision looking to heaven.
As we daily learn to let go, may our stance of resistance become one of welcome and embracing what is to come. This integral shift within us will bring such freedom into our lives and prepare us to see our Lord present now and in eternity. God bless you!
