LET IT GO…let it go!

Thankfully, Spring has sprung.

But it felt like we endured the LONGEST winter ever…it was as if Disney’s Elsa wreaked havoc all over the country.  There we were in mid-March, still experiencing a winter wonderland.  Elsa’s signature song and declaration in the movie Frozen is “Let it Go!”.  Some of my friends who have children have heard this song more than they care to, but we could all stand to learn a lesson from this animated princess.

About two years ago, I stumbled across an interesting article about a woman in Belgium who, for an ENTIRE year, lived with her dead husband. My mind always seeks to find a rhyme or reason behind someone’s thought process.  What was this woman thinking? It would be one thing if he’d collapsed in the basement and her senescence limited her mind or memory.  Or perhaps if he’d gone out for a hunting trip with friends and she was somewhat unaware of his whereabouts. None of this was the case.  This woman willingly, intentionally, and without any sense of wrongdoing, slept in a bed (nightly) with her deceased husband until his body became mummified.

…her refusal to embrace the truth…conveyed more insanity than romance.

 

While some would view this as a case of extreme love, the reality is, her refusal to embrace the truth – that her husband’s life was over – conveyed more insanity than romance.  With no medical support or equipment, any method of care, or without the basic honor of a proper burial, this woman held on to a dead thing. What’s worse is that officials only discovered what was happening in her home after neighbors complained of the extreme odor noxiously seeping from her domicile.

Us “normal people” may marvel at this woman’s inability to separate herself from (what had become) a dead thing, YET how often do we stay connected to people and constructs that are dead?  We romanticize dead relationships by imagining what our family would look like now, and how old our children would be now, omitting the abuse, neglect and gross incompatibility.  We engage our future based on a dead past and wonder why we keep getting the same results.  We beat ourselves with the whips of dead words spoken over us as children by rehearsing them every time we make a simple mistake.  We remember anniversary dates of harmful events and erect monuments to moments of failure and pain in our lives only to visit them, presenting, upon arrival, a bouquet of mixed flowers – suffering, angst, anguish and wasted time.

The reality is simple: there’s a season for everything.  Seasonality runs the earth.  We define our calendars by seasons.  We plan trips and events by seasons.  We decide what clothes to wear by seasons.

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven
(Ecclesiastes 3:1)

A right thing in a wrong season is frustrating…a wrong thing in a right season is heart-breaking…a wrong thing in a wrong season is an absolute mess. BUT A right thing in the right season is a BLESSING…and that’s the only combination that works…lol!  Follow me!

We’ve got to constantly ask the Father, does “this” serve a purpose in my “now”.  I know you felt excited about volunteering for the greeting team when you first joined the church 4 years ago.  You were single then with a lot of time on your plate.  Now, you’re married, with an infant child and are wrestling with going back to school.  You don’t feel the same joy about it anymore…now, it’s much more of an obligation than an opportunity.  The demands of what was once A blessing is wrestling with what could be “THE” blessing in your life.  You started the business with your friend.  You were the ideas guy.  He was the tech guy.  Your ideas kept growing…his tech stopped.  Do you handicap the future of your business by the limited skill of your friend?

Sometimes, God promotes us to our next, by frustrating us with our now.  He literally brings an end to a season.  What once worked simply ceases to satisfy.

Death is one of those inevitable “life things” that just happens.  You can never be truly prepared for it. But when it does  happen, when something reaches its expiration date in your life, you’ve GOT to LET IT GO!  Harmful things happen when food is consumed beyond the expiration date.  You could be doing more damage than good by trying to make a temporary thing a permanent fixture in your life.

The reality is, while this lady was (still) in love with her dead husband, there was a smell that filled the air…a deafening odor so foul, so pungent that her neighbors (unbeknownst to her) reported the smell to officials.  WHAT ARE YOU HOLDING ONTO that is so foul everyone around you can sense, smell, detect that something is off, but because of affection you’ve gone nose-blind to it?

Pray that God will give you the grace to Let It Go!

See the original article here.