Letting Go, Part II

Thank you, Dewayne Woods, for writing "Let Go." Music brought all this to the forefront of my mind...

It's a recurring theme in my life, to be sure: learning to let go of the plans I've made for myself. I learned it in 2005, with a startling change of plans in my college education. I was infuriated with God for reducing -- or so it seemed at the time -- my grand plans down to His unexciting ones. I'm so glad God isn't swayed from the plans He has for me based on my unappreciative attitude at the time. 

[That's something I hadn't even thought about until writing this. Thank You, God, for not allowing my attitude to thwart your blessings. Help me stay positive in the in-between!]

And I don't think God makes this a recurring theme because I don't 'get it' the first time. I do think He is making it recur so that I understand His loving care to a new level each and every time He puts me through a hard time - that is, a storm or a valley.

A finer point to this lesson, though, is that God has shown me that letting go does not involve giving up on my dreams. It simply requires that I allow Him to compose the story His way. And this way ends up requiring far less worry on my part, because in His version, I am not the glue holding it all together. He is. This second part to the letting go lesson, with each and every iteration, and the progressive letting go of dear things and ones, is wildly encouraging. My friend S has told me once, and I've heard it from Pastor N too, that God is not a "cosmic killjoy." In my younger years, a part of me was convinced that He was, and I just accepted that as an unavoidable part of who He is. I'm starting to grasp that joy truly is His end goal for us. I admit, I hate the incredible pain that intervenes on the way to joy. I still haven't made peace with that "surprise" in life (to borrow from CS Lewis' "surprised by joy," I think it's safe to say that, in growing up/maturing, I'm "surprised by pain."). All God does and says is to increase our joy. As I type that, I ask myself, do I really believe that?

Maybe I am not quite there yet, but I can say that I know God to be a restorer of my joy, whether it be restoration from disappointment (especially the blind-siding kind) or from grief of loss. He, in the words of U2 often quoted by dear friend C., is in the business of grace: "making beauty out of ugly things."