Five Minute Fridays: Good-Bye


I'm joining the Gypsy Mama for her Five Minute Friday Challenges. We write because we love words and the relief it is to just write them without worrying if they’re just right or not. No editing, no back peddling. We take five minutes on Friday and write like we used to run when we were kids. On Fridays we write like we believe we can fly. Won’t you join us? Today's subject: Good-Bye


That little hyphenated phrase is my least favorite in the English language. It's not easy to swallow. It comes wrapped in a bittersweet shell of anxiety and excitement, fear and anticipation.

Everything in me pushes back, wanting to stay put because the unknown...is scary.


My head knows that in reality there is little, besides myself that I can control, but the rest of me craves the illusion. The fairytale. Let me believe it, just for a little while, that I can hold the reigns, that the world isn't so grand and scary. That things won't change, and that I won't be propelled into the unknown expanse of "what ifs..."

That I can be in control.

Of my life, of who hurts me.

Tell me kindly that everything will always be okay.

That the bad guys always lose, and the nice guys win.

Tell me that bad things don't happen to good people. That children don't get cancer. That everyone has enough to eat and a warm bed for sleep.

Tell me that others' decisions won't affect my life.

Tell me.

But that soft voice goes buzzing, the one that never presumes to control, though He possesses the ability to.

Let go.

This isn't an easy battle, my hands still firmly placed on the reigns and shaking. But He painfully and lovingly pries each finger off, one by one.

And oh--I know this is good for me. Like cod-liver oil is good.

It just doesn't feel good.


I protest the pain.

Till my hands are empty. Till anything I've held onto but Him remains.

And then, everytime this happens, I look down and realize where He's emptied me, He's filled me up again. With more. With better.


And though we do this often--you would think I'd have learned by now...

You can't receive something better if your hands are full, and you can't have beginnings without the end of something else.

Good-Byes are necessary. So is letting go.


And by His grace I do each time.

Finger by finger.

Will by will.

I relent until there's room for Him to fill.






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