Recently I read one of those increasingly ubiquitous homilies that urges its readers to let go of anything in their lives that makes them unhappy or causes them distress.
But despite its no doubt good intentions, such advice is surely only sometimes sound. Because some things are more important than our individual happiness or our own avoidance of pain and it is only those things that don’t much matter that we should look to let go of.
For the things that do matter, like the love we have for those who sometimes cause us grief, it’s important to hold on – no matter how hard it is to sometimes get a grip.
Because letting go means we’ve given up hope – and giving up hope only leads to despair.
And therein lies the answer to what we should and shouldn’t let go of. Let us by all means give up the things that lead us to hope for what we shouldn’t, like the anger we feel towards someone that causes us to want revenge. But let us never give up on the things that cause us to hope for things we should desire, things like forgiveness, reconciliation and love.
Some things aren’t ever meant to end – and ultimately it’s harder to give up such things than it is to hold onto them forever, irrespective of how painful the associated hope might be to live with.
Some people say that we need to stop allowing ourselves to be controlled by what seems now to be over. But what if we allowed those things to shape us into better people – people who bring peace, healing and new beginnings.
Because that’s what pain and suffering can sometimes do.
Rather than pain and suffering being things that must, at all costs be removed from our lives therefore, perhaps instead we need to welcome them in to our lives as our teachers, firm and fair though they may be – just as all good teachers are.
Because letting go of what hurts us, though more comfortable perhaps in the short term, ultimately only diminishes us, makes us shallow and superficial, and ultimately will only make us more unhappy.
When we let go, we give up and in so doing deny ourselves the chance to grow, deny ourselves the chance to forgive, and deny ourselves to become stronger as a result.
Holding on isn’t easy of course – nor is it for the short term. Even so we need to decide to hold on – day after day after day.
And that’s okay.
Because in the end, we will feel better. And one day, the one we held on for might just be thankful for how we never let them go.
Just as I am grateful to the one who always held on, and never lets go of me.
‘The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning: great is his faithfulness’ [Lamentations 3:22-23]
Related posts:
To read “Hope comes from believing the promises of God”, click here
To read ‘What becomes of the broken hearted? Sorrowful yet always rejoicing on Palm Sunday’, click here
To read ‘Why do bad things happen to good people? Sorrowful yet always rejoicing on Good Friday’, click here
To read ‘Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things? Rejoicing, though temporarily sorrowful, on Easter Day’, click here.
To read ‘Ascension Day’, click here
To read ‘Speaking in Tongues’, click here.
To read ‘All’s Well That End’s Well’, click here
To read ‘T.S. Eliot, Jesus and the Paradox of the Christian Life’, click here
To read ‘Luther and the war in Ukraine – on becoming a theologian of the cross’, click here
To read “Suffering- A Personal View”, click here.
To read ‘Looking back to move confidently forward’, click here
Some musings 