Letting Go

This past fall I once again found myself in a season of “letting go.” Per doctor’s advice, we enrolled our surviving twin daughter in two-day-a-week preschool. Three months into the school year, my daughter loved it, but I continued to struggle with letting her go! Each time I drove away, I was reminded of what it felt like to leave behind Alexa and her identical-twin sister, Alysa, in Neonatal Intensive Care as a result of their fourteen-week-premature delivery. I was reminded of what it felt like to let go of Alexa as I placed her back in her crib each night and left the hospital empty-handed—89 days in a row. And I was reminded of what it felt like to let go of Alysa as she passed away in my arms after just 28 days…

Letting go is at the core of grief. It is having to let go of our loved ones that causes us to grieve. After my daughter’s death, I initially tried to beat the system by refusing to let Alysa go. Instead, I entered a six-month long phase of denial. I chose to believe that if I prayed hard enough, I just might wake up one morning and realize that it had all been just a bad dream. I was afraid to let go of my daughter because I feared how badly it would hurt to truly accept her death. I was afraid that letting go would cause me to forget my daughter. I could not bear to let go of the way I thought my life should come to pass because I saw my way as the only way to live.

But refusing to let go brought upon me an unbearable struggle. Because I chose wait for things to return to the way I wanted them to be, I was unable to make any forward progress in life. I was stuck; paralyzed by grief. And eventually, I was exhausted by the fight. I wanted to find a way to be happy again. I wanted to be able to reclaim the extraordinary life I’ve always dreamed of living. So I turned to the only place that could give me hope, and that was to my faith in God.

Though my daughter’s death caused me to question everything I had ever believed about God, He is still the only One who promises me good things in spite of my daughter’s death. The bible teaches that God will use all things, all things, for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28). Though I couldn’t imagine how God could ever reconcile my daughter’s death, I chose to believe not only that He could, but that He would.

And so it is the same not just in death, but in life. When our “To Do" list seems never-ending; when we feel as though we are spinning out of control; when we realize we just can’t keep up with it all; it’s time to let go. Time to let go of what we want or what we think is important and focus on what God has prepared for us. In Matthew 11:28 the bible reads, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

It was in my deepest state of grief that, for the first time, I learned to let go of the way I thought things should be and learned to see things God’s way instead. As my favorite bible verse, 1 Corinthians 2:9, reads, “no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him."

Letting go allowed me to make peace with my daughter’s death. Letting go of the way I wanted things to be actually allows me to remember my daughter more, not less as I once feared, because I no longer fight the memory of loosing her. Instead, I remember my daughter for who she was—my beautiful baby who could only stay with me a short time. And though I miss her during the day, my other daughter Alexa is having a wonderful time in preschool. You see, only in learning to let go can we discover the freedom to truly live!