letting go – Taia Jo

It’s the last day of January and I’ve been doing some major reflecting on things that have happened in the last month or so. After what I can only describe as a very hard December was nearing its end, I really felt like God was telling me that as I entered into 2024 I needed to let go. It was time to stop reliving things in my head because there was no way to change the situation or outcome. Then Christmas Eve morning I forced myself to still go to church despite my papaw passing very early that morning. The two weeks prior I had really felt like God was telling me I needed to go to a Sunday morning service on Christmas Eve. My church is in the evenings so I was confused why I felt him leading me towards this, especially when I had no idea where I should even go. I listened to the call God was laying on my heart and despite not wanting to go I am so happy I listened. My friends and I landed on going to Mercy Road in Anderson as they were looking for a service to attend Christmas Eve morning as well. If I would have known the chain of events that would happen following that I can almost guarantee I would have stayed home.

The message that day hit me hard and I really did not want to hear it. Refusing to once again cry in a room full of strangers for the New Years Eve service I felt like I needed to live stream at home, God wasn’t quite done using the Pastor’s sermons to speak to me. The pastor started talking about museums and how they are full of so much history. He explained how museums allow us to look back on so much history and how nice is it to be able to reflect on the past. The problem however is that they keep us focused on the past and hinder the ability to look at the future. He continued on to say the more we live our lives like we are in a museum the more we hinder ourselves from the blessings and plans God has for us. When I heard that, my eyes welled up with tears, tears of anger. I felt angry because I knew in that moment the exact situations God was asking me to let go of and why he had been laying that theme on my heart. I asked God how I could possibly let go and risk losing those things forever? Which when I think about it is quite silly considering holding on to things, situations or people do not give me any control of the outcome whatsoever. That’s where I’ve always struggled though, I like trying to control everything. I find comfort in that delusion that I can control everything and how things turn out, but that is not Godly in any way. I’ve always struggled with the phrase let go and let God, because that means I have no say or comfort in attempting to control a situation. With that being said, the sermon continued to talk about various things that fit the theme of letting go and how God is just waiting for us to stop living our lives like we are in a museum and let go to allow his blessing to rain upon us.

During this discovery and very difficult task God was asking of me, I felt God laying something else on my heart, courage. I have never viewed myself as courageous. I’m clearly a little bit of a control freak, I think logically about all the bad things that could go wrong before doing something new or speaking my feelings, which I do not like to share…ever. I am such a scaredy cat I don’t even like being very high off the ground unless I know I’m safely anchored to something, I get nauseous standing on a ladder. So here I am thinking about how letting go is hard enough to process and now God is throwing courage into the mix? Hard pass. However, I realized letting go of these situations was a learning moment because letting go is a step of courage. I have a really bad habit of not finishing one devotional before starting another (I’m bouncing through 4 right now as we speak) but lately I’ve been really sticking to two. One about Esther which I felt compelled to do at the beginning of last year and another study about courageous women in the bible I started in the summer but wasn’t feeling it and just happened to start back up early this month. Esther is the epitome of courage and I’ve been reading through it knowing I would not have handled those situations as courageously as she did. That was a whole different realization I came to but I’m not getting into that. So fast forward to this whole month and I kept reflecting on why God was so persistent in laying the ideas of courage and letting go on my heart. Reflecting, I knew I had scratched the surface because I truly feel I was able to let go of the situations I was hanging on to so tightly. I also know there was a reason God laid studying Ester on my heart a whole year ago and why I did not feel ready to start it until January of this year.

I am writing all of this to say that despite not fully knowing the “why” of what God is doing, I am excited to see where continuing to grow in these areas will take me. That doesn’t come without a little fear because I know there is no growth without pain, and usually letting go comes with a lot of pain. So instead of doing an end of year recap for 2023 I opted to wait and do a reflection of January and walk outside my own museum and focus on the future year ahead. Along with what God has been waiting to teach me and show me that he couldn’t when I was too scared to let go of my tight grip on certain things in my life.

I truly don’t know what 2024 will bring but I do know that God is orchestrating it. I’ve always struggled with letting go and being courageous but if God is being this loud about growing in these areas, I know something big is in store. I know it’s time to stop living in the fear of the “what if I let go” and lose things things/people forever but instead focus on knowing God will bring greater blessings to me in being faithful. I think the book of Esther would have played out much differently had Esther had the same mindset and fears that I do. So for the remainder of 2024 I chose to step out of my comfort zone, let go of the things I cannot control and courageously face the year ahead.

Wow it’s been a minute.

As much as I love blogging, and using social media to blog, I took a huge step back last year. I needed to focus on rediscovering myself and my passions in life. By doing so I traveled to many states, got on a plane for the first time in twenty years, saw the desert for the first time, fell in love with hiking, focused on my mental and physical health and started taking classes for paralegal studies.

As 2022 was coming to an end I really felt like God was telling me that the theme for 2023 would be “letting go”. I, like many people, do not like change. I also love to think I can control everything and everyone in my life. I really wrestled with this and tried to ignore it and searched for anything else that God could be telling me but the words letting go always came back. I honestly wasn’t too thrilled about already knowing what my challenge and a huge part of my growth for 2023 would be.

To be honest I kept myself up at night wrestling with this reality and God wasted absolutely no time in starting this growth period for me. On January first I was sitting in church and 4 questions were asked but two hit me like a ton of bricks.

Who do you need to let go of?
What is a habit you need to break?

Both resonating with letting go but in different ways, and with very prominent situations in my life. In 2022 I tried SO hard to hang on to friendships that were no longer serving a purpose in my life because “they have been such a good friend for so long”. I also had various ideas in my head on how I felt certain situations needed to go and I clung on tightly to those ideas and tried to manipulate those situations to prove my ideas were the best ideas. I genuinely let go of a few people/situations and they came flooding back into my life, further making me believe that letting go and not being in control were not necessary.

January first was not just the start of the new year but the start of my journey of letting go. The first three days of January were full of situations where I knew God was slapping me across the head and saying it was time and I could no longer lie to myself that I could control the situations and people that were included, including situations that do not even directly involve me but I still feel an obligation to try to control. A lot of tears were shed and a lot of questioning God and his plan followed. God wasted no time and honestly I was so overwhelmed with it all happening literally day one, I just did not understand why God would do that to me knowing how hard of a lesson this was going to be for me.

After those first few days I honestly isolated myself and just tried to sort through my thoughts and feelings. I spent a lot of time in the gym and focused on easing myself into letting go of emotional situations and focused on physical things. I went to my closet and got rid of 5 large bags of clothes and instead of fear or sadness I felt freedom. Then it hit me, if I can feel freedom from letting go of physical things weighing me down and cluttering my life, what can happen if I let go of friendships, situations, and relationships that are weighing me down because I am trying to control them. Getting rid of physical things in my life made the emotional stuff I was identifying to let go seem a lot less scary. Once I was able to get rid of 5 bags of clothing I felt the urge to start decluttering other things. Book shelves, knick knacks, text books and I still have so much to go through. I realized that letting go doesn’t have to be a heartbreaking experience, increase my anxiety to unhealthy levels or be associated with a bad situation.

I can’t control everything and everyone, I cannot control every aspect of my life because life does not work that way. What I can do instead, is focus on the freedom I feel when I take a situation out of my hands and give it to God. The freedom of trying to put a friendship in a certain box that I feel it fits in. The freedom of accepting certain relationships for what they are and not focusing on controlling the relationship for what I want it to be. Letting go of situations my friends are in and realizing I cannot force them to get out of the situation or see it for what it is.

So, if you are like me and really struggle with letting go, I encourage you to dig deep and embrace the idea of letting go. It is not an easy task and I do not want to downplay it as this is something I have struggled with since highschool. What I can promise you is that after the tears fall, the dust settles, and you adjust to your life learning to be okay to not be in control you really will feel a whole new type of freedom that you have not felt before.

I am always here for any of you, strangers or friends if you find yourself in this same place and need someone to talk or cry to. Letting go can feel lonely at times but please know, you are not alone.

Tag: letting go

January Reflections

2023: The year of letting go