letting go...{day 2}

we drive on the days he works late, out past the neighbours and noise and lights.

we drive out to the orchards and to the roads that wind up hills and we hush, all three of them and i, as the autumn sun washes everything in gold.

and there is one spot i drive to, because as much as i have fallen in love with this valley and the mountains that surround on every side, the prairies are engraved on my heart and though it's less often now, i still crave a flat horizon and a land that stretches out farther than my eyes can see...

and before i can do as paul did and forget about what lies behind and strain forward to what lies ahead, i need to take one long look back: because letting go involves releasing, with open hands, a very real part of me.

because to run a race well, involves running unfettered and running unfettered means letting somethings go.  things that were once thought to be needed.

and it's when i begin to take what was meant to be helpful and turn it into something indispensable, as in, more vital than Jesus,

i need to let it go...

or, those irreversible moments, the ones that i've cried over and wondered over and kicked myself over and how, how can it ever be fixed?

when those thoughts begin to strangle my hope, when my mistakes loom larger than my Lord,  

it's time to open my hands

and let it go...

because letting it go releases it to Him. and in His Hands our dreams, our needs, our failures and our very wants become something redeemable and it allows us to walk free, whether He chooses to give back to us what we've released or not...

and i can see, past that patch of green and that flat earth that soothes when my soul is restless,    

how the sun catches those mountains beyond,

how He has been leading me here all along...