The Challenge (Letting go)

 Last week, I was flooded with visceral memories of pregnancy and baby days; the tight belly, the pain, the soft skin, the closeness … I treasure those memories; there is so much gratitude in them now; and yet I am shocked to say there is NOT a desperate longing to go back.

Why? How could it have melted away when once it was all I could feel? Could it have been the slow sunshine of gifts in the next season? Gifts of new flavors and colors that simply couldn’t fit in a life with preschoolers… It turns out, downstream of that season, there was more God and more grace and more facets of the diamond, an expansion of life and love; wider and deeper faithfulness of God; just MORE of all of it.

But I remember standing on the boat just as it pulled away from the bank; oh how I longed to stay; I lingered in my heart; I left claw marks on that shore, I could hardly believe that there was anything better downstream when there was so much good THERE.

What if I don't have to do it quite like that again? 

Now we’re shoving off from the next shore.. or rather she’s shoving off from our shore; and there are things to grieve, but maybe I can grieve without fighting so much; maybe I can give tearful thanks with tenderness and surrender, and also look forward with hope.

This is the challenge- can you believe? Can you dare to trust that God--

who has given and taken away and given more

who has kept you in the storms and always provided manna

--can you dare to trust that letting go- to Him -is safe?

that He will provide for your empty hands in ways you cannot foresee

that going with Him downstream- so long as He Himself is present- 

will be deeper and wider and richer in all the ways that matter?

 Can you let sweet chapters come to an end, and still move forward in faith, 

further up and further in?