Letting Go

Letting go has never been my specialty. Unless it involves a broom handle on which a spider is climbing toward me. That I can let go of.

But in nearly everything else, I'm a clinger. There's the holding on to old friends (which can be loyalty if I'm being kind to myself). There's the holding on to memories (which can be nostalgia if I'm making allowances). And there's the holding on to ideals (which is guaranteed to be heartbreaking no matter what I call it).

Sometimes I'm just holding on, in general, the way you clutch a subway pole in rush hour, staring straight ahead to avoid the ill-advised eye contact with another zoned-out commuter. Sometimes I just hold on because I don't know what else to do with my hands.

But sometimes I hold on because letting go is tantamount to lungs failing to fill up. Because I would code right here on the old berber carpet.

That's how I feel about my kids. As much as they annoy me to shreds when they whine and drag bedtime four time zones out, I think my heart might stop beating if I lost one of them.

I've read the grief choked words of other moms who lived (or are living) a forced letting go, a nightmare. And all I can do in response is gasp and shudder. I cry on the suspicion that my dog has arthritis. So it's only natural to assume I would be an eternal wreck if ever I lost my grip on the surprisingly strong little hands of my girl and my boy.

But.

I'm supposed to let go.

He asks me to love Him more. (It's not too much to ask, considering the way He loves me, His child. And yes, I get that now--this mother love cements it in clearest analogy).

He asks me to trust Him with their hands, their souls, their futures, their inevitable suffering.

And I just have to confess.

I can't.

I'm not there yet.

I want to be (and still, I don't want to be).

I don't want to let go.

I am finally getting to the point where His grace is sufficient for me, where faith is enough for me, where He is enough for me, but I'm not to the point--not even close--where I believe it to be enough for them.

(I can't believe I'm saying any of this out loud, let alone on the internet.) I trust Him to take care of me, but I don't trust Him--not beyond the cliche and to the core--to take care of my children.

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To those of you who believe this crazy Jesus stuff that I believe, I just have to ask, how do you get there, to the point where you trust Him wholeheartedly with the people you love? Is there a secret door? Does anybody else wish it was as simple as entering a PIN, handing over a key card, stepping through security? (Sheesh. I should have just written one of those New Year's-ey Recaps. I can't believe I'm hitting publish....)