Letting go
A bit of prefatory stuff:
For any interested in watching the third installment of my interviews with Alan Gilman which have stretched across the duration of the PhD, you can find it here! We discuss insights gleaned from Job and postures towards Scripture in the church.
Also, the initial intent of this Substack was to catalogue the Cambridge years. Upon reaching the end of that era, I do plan to continue writing monthly for the foreseeable future. If anyone no longer wishes to read along past Cambridge, feel free to unsubscribe with no hard feelings from me. :) For those who do wish to keep reading, however, I’ll be taking a hiatus next month due to the wedding on August 1 and aim to resume writing in September.
For the editorial eyes among you, I’m returning to American spelling now that I’ve crossed back over the pond!
My dad once told me that he thinks ‘let go’ are two of the most profound words of the Christian life. He (unsurprisingly) was onto something: those two little unassuming words sit at the heart of such central and weighty Christian values as forgiveness and submission. And also, it now strikes me, ‘let go’ sits at the heart of navigating transitions with grace.
The more beautiful something is, the harder the letting go of it is. Yet I think that life well-lived requires having eyes attuned to the good and beautiful and loving it ardently when it’s found. To fail to do so would be to settle for a pale, shadowy existence rather than the deep-color, flesh-and-bone life for which we were made. But for full and vibrant living to increase the pain of inevitable endings might seem like a cruel joke, a brutal catch-22 of celebration and grief in which to be caught.
Yet here’s my current theory: that cruel joke would be the case if a particular kind of gratitude wasn’t mingled with the tensive mixture of celebration and grief, binding it all together. Gratitude can preserve the joy of what has been while also facilitating letting it go gracefully in its time.
I don’t mean ‘gratitude’ in the bland platitudinal sense prevalent in (at least) American culture where good things are often treated as if they’re randomly suspended in midair for the receiver to grab and appreciate, as if detached from any giver. No, I mean precisely the gratitude that emanates from a keen awareness of the Giver, a gratitude that is vacuous without that beautiful Giver foregrounded as he dispenses beautiful gifts.
You see, when the God of the universe—who is all-wise, strong without compare, and thoroughly good—is the one giving gifts to children in whom he delights and whom he is expertly transforming into readiness for glory, the movements of his hand can be trusted. When he opens his hand and releases beautiful blessings, his children rejoice. Then when he gathers those blessings again or changes how they’re experienced, his children can walk forward in the afterglow of the joy of what has been with eyes freshly illumined to see more expressions of his goodness to come. And in the letting go itself, God is there giving to his children more of his very own self, beauty beyond measure or expression. So it’s impossible for these children to be let down by the Giver who will never let them go and whose goodness can never be outpaced by their imaginations or expectations.
Stated otherwise, real gratitude makes this difference in letting go: when gifts come from the hand of this Giver, the receiver can only cradle those gifts on palms held open by thankfulness. To curl one’s fingers and futilely attempt to clutch the gift in unyielding fists would actually damage the beauty of the gift. To presume to prolong the gift beyond what the Giver has ordained for it would be a dishonor to the Giver, as if betraying a belief that his purposes cannot be trusted and his character cannot be relied upon for supplying what is needed tomorrow.
I write these words in late June hovering somewhere over Greenland, having just left my home of nearly three years in Cambridge and heading for a new adventure in the States—the one place I pictured myself least likely to go upon completion of the PhD when I began! After months of the knowledge of my imminent departure from Cambridge being strictly theoretical and surreal, the relentless series of farewells and endings in June began to crack the shell of the surreal. I’m conscious that even still I’ve not yet internally registered the full impact of leaving and will be feeling and processing its ongoing subterranean tremors for weeks and probably months to come.
But already the letting go is so hard. Kind people around me have been reminding me to give space for tears as they come (and they’ve been coming). Though wearying, grieving is right for this time. Of course, many of the relationships formed in Cambridge will continue and grow for many more years, Lord willing, and I know I can return to the city in the future. However, the shape of those years with all the people involved just irrevocably ended and will never happen again. Something has been lost that will not be regained, and so grieving is a proper part of the letting go.
And grieving is also capable of encouraging. After all, the going is hard because the relationships have been sincere and significant. Because the awareness of God’s instruction has been acute. Because the gifts have been so good and beautiful, including within and because of periods of difficulty. As I look back and remember, the Giver’s generosity keeps bringing tears to my eyes.
It is right to grieve and let gratitude have its full effect in me as I let go. At the same time, I can take heart that the Giver’s hand has withdrawn this Cambridge season at this time in his wisdom and goodness.
And joy of joys, that letting go of one season unfurls me into another season of much anticipated beauty as I prepare to meet my bridegroom Isaac and stride together into kingdom living as we wait for the Bridegroom to return for his Bride.
The Giver’s generosity will never cease bringing tears to my eyes. I hope and pray it may for you, too.
And may the Giver continually refresh our awe and widen our eyes, that we may grow ever younger as the years go by.
