Letting Go

What is it about letting go that's so difficult? Particularly baffling is the way I hold onto things that I don't even want. It's not just the big stuff either. For years I kept this very, very ugly gravy boat in the shape of a turkey. We're really talking about Not Big Stuff here. Why did I keep it? I never intended to use it, but I couldn't give it up.

It's the same thing with my sins. I say I don't want them. They're ugly and useless. Worse than useless. And yet... They are mine. They are familiar. They are always there, like that gravy boat that I used to see every time I opened the cabinet. They have been with me a long time. I've wrapped, packed and upacked them as I've moved from place to place in my life, my sins and the gravy boat. They're part of who I am.

You see, it's my identity I'm loathe to part with. Who will I be if I am not who I have been, the woman with the ugly turkey gravy boat? Who am I when I am not judgmental or dishonest or phony or shallow?

Eventually I got tired of taking care of the gravy boat, of moving it out of the way to get to the silver or the china. I put it in a box, set the box on the porch, and watched some burly guy come and take it away in a truck.

The fact is, my sins have long since been packed up and taken away, in the waters of baptism. The old me, the turkey gravy boat me, has already been replaced by something new. I just need to catch up to what is.

"I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." - Galatians 2:19b-20 (NRSV)

"So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! " - 2 Corinthians 5:17 (NRSV)