Letting Go

Claudia said the road trip would be a God journey – about far more than the obvious.  Was it ever! From my angle, it was a continued weaning from the false cry for identity, definition, and the labels I’d placed on myself. There was darkness, and in the end… sweet light that revealed God’s right to define me.

I often felt I was in a very dark cave.  There by appointment, but uncomfortable none-the-less.  The cave was painful.  Unable to see, I stubbed my toe and hit my shin; but I couldn’t back up.  I had to keep going knowing I might bump my head too.

Darkness tested the paradox between the unalienable right to be myself and the freedom to be nobody at all. The silence hurt my ears but I did not cover them.  Shedding pretense was worth losing what I thought was so important.   I faced flaws… deep, dark, spiritual flaws; the kinds that mar the character and mask true identity.  I was pained until I saw that the obstacles I bumped in the dark were the things I was unwilling to see about myself.

I am back, but the journey continues.  Humility severed the need for definition and revealed that I was never undefined.  I am who He says I am;  He calls me a writer.  I belong to Him; He will prove Himself through me in the vein of His choosing.

Mom died a year ago today…my brother Mark, less than six months ago.  Daddy died two years before Mom…a dear friend and spiritual mentor close behind him.  A kaleidoscope of grief made it difficult to face each death with distinction.  So much change in such a short span of time made life as I knew it unrecognizable.

I once heard that losing parents is akin to watching a great library burn to the ground.  My greatest resource in life is suddenly gone.  I not only grieve the death of my parents, but the last remnants of my childhood for suddenly I am the new voice of wisdom.  A generation has moved on, their hand reaching backwards fully expecting mine to reach forward to take the baton they are passing…whether I want it or not.

The shock wave of my brother’s death is diminishing and I find myself returning to a grief interrupted, life in absentia of mom.

Mom was my best friend, confidant, and safest haven…all descriptions incapable of conveying who she was (and in my heart still is) to me.  Mom was the one with whom I was my raw self.  That is to say, she overlooked a lot and withstood the abuse of my own pain.  With Mom I never pretended to be more than who I was on any given day.  She wanted me to feel safe, intuitively knowing I was hurting and hiding from other relationships.  The thing is – Mom saw the whole of me.

She was my biggest fan and the number one hopeful that I would find my own voice.  She read every word I wrote and never failed to let me know that she felt they were, well, anointed.   She once told me that my writing “made an easy connection between my message and me as a person.”  That meant a lot to me.  I was her favorite writer, teacher, and singer of songs.  We all deserve moms like this!

For many years, I’d go to visit my mom and just sleep a lot.  I usually showed up at her door feeling spent.  It wasn’t the length of the drive…11 hours is an easy trip for me.  It was the way I lived my life. I was always going above and beyond – trying to live up to an expectation that I could never meet.  I was angry, bitter, depressed. When the masks were wearing thin, I’d show up at Mom’s ready to rip them off.

Mom drew poison out of me like a healing poultice.  She’d woo details of my morbid self-view onto the table and then help me to dismantle them one-by-one.  I think it caused her pain, but she knew the wounds needed to be lanced and so she did.

Mom had a way of delivering me out of my hellish circle of self; she did it by simply needing me.  She didn’t lecture against self-pity or use back-handed methods of correction.  She knew I was too self-focused, but rather than telling me to shift my focus (causing me to feel guilty when I was unable to do so) she would just need me.  She knew to draw upon the real Susan.  She’d have a problem she couldn’t solve, a question she couldn’t answer, a need that required my response.  She drew my focus off of myself and onto her. She’d ask me to explain a perplexing thought, what the Word had to say on a given subject, or simply ask me to sing her a song – as though only my voice could soothe her own unrest.  She did it often and she did for me.  I have no doubt my mother knew more than I…but she chose to need me for my sake…and that changed my life.  She taught me that helping others was helping me.

Mom lived to see my evolution.  She saw me walk away from depression in its most debilitating forms.  She watched me make the painful transition out of a ministry position I was afraid to let go of even though I no longer fit the role.  She witnessed the softening of the rough edges of my difficult relationships.  

Mom, I love you and I have never thanked you enough for seeing me through.  Because of you, I am a much better me.  I still reach for your hand daily…and miss you dearly.

If I won’t let go of the discourtesy of another (real or imaginary) then what will I do with it?  Holding onto a lack of consideration in another (or my own for that matter) hurts.  Forgiveness is a good starting place when looking for clear perspective.  It’s a waste of time to determine if my perception of someone else’s action is accurate.  To rely on mental discernment is to enter the twisted imaginings of a false and fleeting ego. Who I really am knows what is real versus mere projection and conjecture…more importantly, she knows what to do with what she knows.  Imaginations are cast down when I let go – and easily executed when I remember there is no “me” who needs defending.  In the circle of life, wrongs turn to rights and all things come back into the light. I can trust the heart, motive, and intentions of each person (including me) because I trust God.  This is the purist view that’s simplifying my thought life.  I see vessels of honor, green pastures, and rich fruit.

You know, giving birth is just letting go, or releasing that which I’ve carried. Forgiveness then is simply letting go. I am letting go of my egotistical expectations (and the offenses they can cause). It is a delivery, a way of bearing fruit. Forgiveness is the key to moving forward. To forgive is also the key to self-acceptance and to the joy of accepting and valuing others. Where there are generous levels of acceptance there is little need for forgiveness. Offenses occur where expectations run rampant.