There's an important difference
between giving up and letting go.
- Jessica Hatchigan
::
I've been feeling antsy lately.
Unsettled.
Part of it is physical simply because I can't get comfortable. When I'm still, everything inside my body feels like I should move. Shift positions. Alter my existence. When I move, everything about me screams to stay still. Moving hurts, it just stirs up more problems. But being still hurts, too, and the nausea never escapes either option. So it's a never ending battle between being still and being in motion.
It's a push and a pull where neither satisfies.
And it creates an antsy feeling in my spirit as well.
Because I'm stuck between being still and being in motion with life. The desire to do everything and the ability to do nothing. I lay in bed, in the antsy stillness and think of graduations approaching. I think of friends' birthdays and anniversaries and kids soon to be romping in the summer sun. I think of thank you notes to write, emails to send, canvases to make, phone numbers to dial and ways I could bless people. Ways I could help. Ways I could be present.
But the stillness trumps it all. I lift my arms to grab the card and the air escapes my lungs and I am too tired to rise. I go to grip the pen that will write the note and it shakes like I'm 80 years old, wondering where the old familiar motions have disappeared. So I think of the people in my mind instead of on paper, and I whisper a thank you in a prayer for them and pray they feel the love from where they are.
And I wonder about my purpose, what that might be if the things of my mind and heart can't be produced by my hands or my lips. I wonder what I'm supposed to be doing if I can't do anything.
I'm seeking the answers in outside things – in activities and achievements – that I can no longer do or accomplish.
And I am still. And antsy.
And I think of this quote:
There's an important difference
between giving up and letting go.
- Jessica Hatchigan
And I realize that part of seeking out what my purpose is, what my goals should be, how to fulfill what God has put in front of me, is to let go.
Let go of the ideas that I can't make happen. Let go of the expectations I put on myself to be more than myself. It's a constant process as I lose more abilities, to adapt and adjust and let go of the notion that what I should be is anything other than what I am.
It's a fine line, between giving up and letting go. Because I'm not giving up on having a purpose. I just may have to let go of putting energy into the things that no longer work so I can focus my energy on the things that still do work.
So I'm letting go of other things to do one thing, be here with all of you. I'm learning to let go of some of the things that take away the energy I need to make that happen.
And I realize that in some ways I'm lucky, because my life forces me to be still, be slow, let go of the externals so I don't lose sight of my purpose.
And it makes me wonder if all of you slow down in your lives … have you taken the time lately to really question and seek out what God's purpose is for you? And what you may need to let go of in this season to make that happen?