Letting Go of Disappointments and Painful Losses (2 page)

In every season of life, we are faced with disappointing situations and disturbing emotions that we must learn to let go of for our own good. Letting go, however, requires us to confront many of the core values of our culture.

People today value competence, achievement, gain, accumulation, control, self-sufficiency, and independence. Capitalizing on our fear of losing these things, advertisers cultivate
our appetites not only to hang on tight to whatever we have, but also to seek ever more “stuff” in order to feel satisfied. Television commercials hammer the message into our psyches: “The more you have, the more valued, powerful, sexy, and successful you will be.” Of course, the flip side of this message is: “The less you have, the less valued, powerful, sexy, and successful you will be.” It’s a deceptive, toxic thesis that sets us up for disappointment and undermines our sense of contentment. Although our culture conditions us to hang on, peace and true satisfaction come with letting go.

Cheryl, a woman who came to me for counseling, told me that before she had quadruple-bypass heart surgery, she experienced a pervasive feeling of emptiness. “I bought bigger houses and nicer cars, filled more closets with clothes, and redecorated every year. I wanted more, more, more to fill the hole inside. I kept thinking,
If I just have more, the emptiness will go away.

But Cheryl’s heart attack and subsequent surgery changed things. Life-threatening situations typically do. In preparation for her hospital stay, she packed a small, dark green suitcase with a few personal belongings. All the items fit neatly in her compact canvas bag-on-wheels. During her recovery, she used the same robe, the same slippers, the same comb, and the same brush every day. She read from one of the two books she had brought with her, selected from her library of hundreds.

One afternoon, Cheryl was surprised by the contentment she felt. “I was rummaging through my suitcase, which contained five or six items from home,” she said, “and it dawned on me that the emptiness was gone. The surgery had gone well.
The prognosis was good. God had granted me life. I had everything I needed.” A month later, Cheryl and a friend held a three-day garage sale at which she sold much of what she had accumulated over the years. “More isn’t necessarily better,” she concluded. “When I let go of all that stuff, I let go of the illusions that came with it.”

Cheryl’s physical illness had facilitated emotional healing. The heart surgery had been successful on two counts: It had given her another chance to live, and it had helped her release her grip on the clutter that was holding her hostage.

We all have holes in our souls. But acknowledging this takes courage because we don’t easily accept and embrace weakness, need, loss, or suffering. For the most part, we harbor a subtle contempt for the debilities or deficiencies we perceive in ourselves and others. As a result, we end up rejecting key parts of our humanity. We gloss over our needs rather than admit them. We deny, minimize, or at least sidestep many forms
of suffering. The result? We are left to struggle with our afflictions alone in the dark.

God never intended for us to suffer alone. From the very beginning of time, He has wanted people to enjoy intimate relationships with Him and others. He longs to walk arm-in-arm with us—and to provide empathetic friends to walk with us—through the sorrows and sufferings that are an inevitable part of life in this world. Connections matter. When we withdraw, detach, or close God and others out of our suffering, we turn away from our source of life and derail our own healing. In relationship with God and others, however, we can find the safety to let go and begin to heal.

When I think back over my own life—the disappointments, the losses, the times of deep sadness and overwhelming anxiety—I can see that my greatest moments of relief came when I sensed that God or a trusted friend was truly present with me in my pain. It was as if someone opened the door on my darkness, walked in, sat down with me, and, with full acceptance, waited. My brokenness was our meeting place. Inner peace and healing were born within that connection. That companionship in my suffering brought relief, even though the circumstances evoking the pain remained the same.

We are all vulnerable to disappointment and painful loss. As you read the pages that follow, you will meet many people who, like you, have suffered deep sorrow. I pulled some of the stories from my personal journals. Others came from people with whom I’ve had the privilege of crossing paths, people who have taught me about holding things
loosely. I hope the ideas and stories in this book will raise your awareness that you are not alone in your struggles and that you do not have to bear your burdens in isolation.

There is a Companion awaiting your invitation. God sees. He cares. Your painful disappointments matter to Him, and He has not abandoned you in your pain. Nor is your pain an obstacle to His work in you. Your point of brokenness may very well become the place where He moves powerfully in a holy visitation. Through various sufferings I have learned that the empty places created by letting go become the places God can fill with His richest blessings.

May God enable us all to become skilled artisans in letting go.

C
HAPTER
O
NE

TRY A LITTLE EXERCISE WITH ME. I’D LIKE YOU TO CLENCH
your fist into a ball, squeeze as hard as you possibly can, and count to ten. Study your hand as you do so.

Ready? Go. S-q-u-e-e-e-e-z-e.

Okay, now relax. How did your fist feel, gripping so tightly? What did it look like? Can you describe the sensations you felt? How did it feel to release your grip and open your hand after you counted to ten?

When your hand was clenched, it was uncomfortable, wasn’t it? Tense. Bloodless. Unable to move freely. Not only that, but it wasn’t able to do what it was
designed
to do. Your hand was closed, unable to receive. But when you let go and opened your hand, you could feel the blood returning to your fingers, couldn’t you? Your hand became warm again. It relaxed, the discomfort left, and you felt relief. Your fingers moved naturally, and your hand was in a much better position to receive.

There are similarities between our physical bodies and our psyches. When we go through life grasping, clinging, clutching, and desperately trying to hang on to things that
should naturally be released, we ache. We get tied up in knots. We become emotionally constricted and locked up in pain. We lose freedom of movement in our lives and feel paralyzed.

None of us enjoys loss. The world teaches us to avoid it at all costs. We don’t like to let go of something we treasure, love, value, or simply own. When we are forced to let go of something, it usually ends up with claw marks all over it.

Billy Graham tells a story about a small boy caught playing with an extremely valuable vase. The little guy had put his hand into the vase but couldn’t take it out. His father tried his best to help him, but all his efforts were in vain.

They were thinking gloomily of breaking the beautiful vase when the father sighed and said, “Now, son, try one more time. Open your hand and hold your fingers out straight as you see me doing, and then
pull.
”

To his dad’s astonishment the little fellow said, “Oh no, Father. I couldn’t put my fingers out like that. If I did, I’d drop my penny!”
¹

Smile if you will, but truth be told, you and I are a lot like that little boy—so busy holding on to what we should be letting go of that we cannot accept freedom.

When Carl came to see me, his wife had just told him that she had found a lover and no longer wanted to be married. Looking at the floor and shaking his head in utter disbelief, he said, “I know I have my faults, but divorce? I just never thought it would come to this.” As far as his wife was concerned, the relationship was over, and Carl wanted help in adjusting to the many losses that accompanied the divorce. At sixty-four, he
thought that starting over was an impossible task.

During the months that followed, Carl and Nancy divided their assets, signed papers, and committed to parting amicably. Carl moved out, purchased another home, and tried to begin a new life. After the divorce was finalized, he dated off and on but continued to call Nancy on a regular basis. Whenever he came into my office after seeing her, Carl was in a downward spiral. Hanging on was killing him. Choosing my words carefully, I commented on the obvious pattern, but severing the connection was not his solution of choice.

Then, on the night of his sixty-fifth birthday, an interesting turn of events seemed to propel Carl forward in his healing. He invited a group of friends, including Nancy, over for dessert. After everyone else left, he and Nancy spent some quiet moments alone, reminiscing about old times. That night Carl went to bed feeling rather morose, and he had a series of distressing dreams with a repetitive theme. “In each dream I was lost,” he said, “trying to find my way, unsuccessfully groping in the darkness for something to hang on to. I kept banging into things and getting hurt.”

The following morning, Carl worked on some projects in his garage for a couple of hours. Shaking his head in exasperation, he said, “I was all fingers. It was as if everything I reached for was just beyond my grasp. I’d go to pick up a tool, miss it by an inch, and slam my hand into something else.” The red marks on his knuckles told the story.

Carl was insightful, and I wondered aloud if he saw the thread woven throughout the incidents he had just described. He pondered the question, but nothing seemed to surface.

I offered a suggestion: “Could those dreams and your experience in the garage the next morning be expressions of the conflict you feel from trying to hang on to Nancy?”

Light dawned. After a few moments of quiet thought, he looked at me and said, “Yes. I believe that about hits the nail on the head.”

The session ended shortly thereafter, and a month later Carl scheduled another appointment with me. This time he looked rested and stood an inch taller. I sensed his grief, but I also detected less agitation and a more forward focus. I commented on this and asked if he could identify what had made the difference.

He said, “I’ve quit grasping.”

If we want to move successfully from one season of life to the next, at times we will have to release our grip on things past. And when we do, we must expect at first to experience intense and complex emotions. As endings, empty spaces, rifts,
separations, and little deaths come our way, so do feelings of grief. When we are grieving such losses, it helps to know that God has good counsel for us. He hasn’t left us hanging. Solomon penned these lovely lines, which are so much more than poetry: