Deep inner strength is required to hold on in life. We take things as they come and some of them knock us over. We can prepare ourselves for trials and tests, making us stronger mentally. We begin to get used to pain after a while, becoming tougher emotionally and we acquire what some say is “thick skin.” I have discovered that some of us are stronger than we think, we can take some pretty tough blows from life. Sometimes we are so good at being strong, we actually form a bad habit, a habit of holding on too long. We never get past some things and end up keeping them very near our hearts. I heard this said once, “when we don’t forgive, we allow the people who have hurt us to live in our hearts, rent free.”
The same amount of strength required to hang in there is the very same source of strength that allows us to let go. Problem is, we forget how to let go well, in fact we might actually forget how to rid ourselves of emotional baggage sometimes. As the years of struggle, pain and testing pile on, we end up carrying things around with us, things that reside in our past but because we don’t heal properly, we carry them around in our present, making it feel and seem like the incident is happening over and over, when in fact it happened already, it’s in the past.
In order to be really healthy, we need to be able to sit alone, meditate, pray and clear our minds from some things that have kept us back from emotional maturity, some things that just aren’t worth carrying around anymore. Maybe we hold on because it just feels better to still have someone else to blame, maybe we like being the victim. Either case, only in silence, getting on touch with spirit that lives inside can we find these things, address them, bring finality to them and once and for all decide that it’s time to let go.
Have you learned how to let it go?
I’ve had to learn that forgiving someone is not the same thing as condoning what they did. It’s not admitting that their actions were OK. It’s just simply trusting God to deliver justice instead of me.
That right there is freedom AND maturity brother.
M_
Oh yes! Learning to let go is how I realized that you don’t know what you are capable if doing until God shows you. forgiving others comes easy once you accept how much forgiveness God has showered on you.
Wow, Susan, thank you, love your thougts here.
M_
I remember a few years ago feeling like God was telling me “you’re out of control and you’re out of your mind.”
It started a turning point: stop controlling.
You only get to keep what you give away right?
Stop controlling is such great word and revelation.
Thank you Andrew,
M_
For the most part I have learned to let it go. Though at times I still struggle with letting go and allow God to come in.
The Holy Spirit has really helped me understand Romans 8:28.
M_