People ask me about Letting Go a lot. I’m not sure why I get asked, but I did write a short piece on it a while back and that does prompt questions. (http://deanaohara.com/2009/07/11/letting-go-let-go-and-let-god/) forgive me for the lack of appropriate hotlinking, wordpress seems to be fritzing on me tonight.
I will share that that one piece gets more hits than all of my other stories combined. I guess letting go is a big topic for people today. What I know today will change tomorrow. Life has a way of doing that. Letting go means a lot of thing – to me the phrase Let Go and Let God is reflected beautifully not only in Proverbs 3,5-6 but also in the serenity prayer — posted here in it’s entirety. My favorite line? “Taking as He did, this sinful workd as it is and not as I would have it; TRUSTING that he will make all things right if I surrender to his will.”
Allison Bottke (God Allows U-Turns and Setting Boundaries at http://www.allisonbottke.com/ ) wrote this in her blog today ” And I thank God for the ever-increasing knowledge that if we obey God’s calling, He will provide the needed strength.”
There is more truth in that statement than there are hairs on my head – and if you know me you know that I have hair bigger than the state of Texas so that is saying a lot.
The Serenity Prayer
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen
Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will direct your paths
Proverbs 3, 5-6
Deana O'Hara - Speaker, Comedian, Writer 
yep -I like that visual – a paddle ball. That is dead on.- Andy Andrews did a guest post on Micheal Hyatt’s blog – it was on forgiveness and I think it applies here — I can’t remember the exact quote but he said something along the lines of When Jesus told his disciples to forgive 7 X 70, he did not mean that some moron was going to anger us 490 times… it’s just that we as humans have a tendancy to forgive and pick it right back up again – and so we have to choose to forgive what ever it was again and again and again. I think the same thing applies with life and the issues we keep taking back.
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The human tendacy is to let go, but we have tied a rubber band around the need, so it will keep bouncing back to us…similar to those paddle balls we got as children. We have to give it up without any strings attached, so we don’t get it back until God is finished with it.
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That’s very true Susan. Things don’t always go as I plan and I really have to trust and surrender to God. That’s not always an easy thing to do. But there is always something to learn in the process. His ways are not my ways and his ways are always best.
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I have been thinking about letting go in many ways, especially in these times. Things don’t go as we would have liked or planned So we do want we can and figure God will shut the door or open the door.
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