The Beauty Of Letting Go

The trees are about to show you

 just how beautiful letting go can be.

A friend posted that quote on Facebook last week. I had just visited Dillon Nature Center in Hutchinson on a fall afternoon. I had a few minutes to wander the paths there while I was waiting to pick up another friend who was at the dialysis center.

The trees weren't yet at their peak, but with a hint of fall in the air, it was a beautiful detour after I ran the errands I'd been forced to delay during wheat planting time.

Without my afternoon respite at Dillon Nature Center, maybe I would have read the quote and scrolled on by. But with those images of colorful leaves still on my mind, I jotted down the message on the notepad on my desk.

With other things on my to-do list, I didn't think about the quote until I started to compile the photos into a blog post. But this time, I read the quote in a whole new way.

The trees are about to show you

 just how beautiful letting go can be.

"Letting go ..." It's good for more than just leaves on trees. Someone had said something to me that really bothered me. I don't think the person meant any harm. But I stewed and fretted over the words nonetheless. In honesty, I gave them a lot more weight than they deserved.

 

I am someone who does better writing my feelings out, rather than trying to speak them. I composed a lengthy email to this person, but I left it in my "drafts" rather than hitting "send." I had a busy day, so it sat in my computer, but it also took up space in my mind.

And then I opened up my work-in-progress blog post, and I read those words about letting go in a whole new way. In that moment, it had nothing to do with the beauty of fall leaves. It had everything to do with "letting go" of the hurt.

So, instead of pushing "send" on the email, I deleted it from the drafts. I may still be working on "deleting" it from my mind, but I'm trying.

Around the same time, my Guideposts devotional had these words:

O God, give me the wisdom to know 

when to hold on and when to let go.

Only a few days before, I had stood in the quietness and watched the sun filter through trees, casting light and shadow over scene after scene.

I decided I needed to reflect His Light, too. I admit it took me awhile to get there.

Psalm 130:3-5New International Version (NIV)

³ If you, Lord, kept a record of sins,
    Lord, who could stand?
⁴ But with you there is forgiveness,
    so that we can, with reverence, serve you.

On another scroll through Facebook, there was a quote shared by another friend:

Letting go ... forgiveness ... kindness: Those attributes seemed to be the right thing to do - even if the leaves weren't quite ready to do the same quite yet. 

***

As I was finishing up this post, I got a call from Randy to go and pick him up from a hay field several miles away. And wouldn't you know it, a song came on K-LOVE, Matthew West's "Forgiveness." (Click on the link to listen.)

Here are just some of the words:

It's the hardest thing to give away
And the last thing on your mind today
It always goes to those who don't deserve
It's the opposite of how you feel
When the pain they cause is just too real.
It takes everything you have to say the word
FORGIVENESS

It was just another instance that one of my friends calls a "God wink." 

***

I'm linked to Tell His Story with Jennifer Dukes Lee. Click on the link to read more stories of faith.