Letting Go

If you have a family member who has been affected by the disease of addiction, you probably know something about ‘letting go.’  My twelve-step program tells me that if I am to let go in a healthy fashion, I must detach with love.  St. Ignatius called this practice holy indifference.  Whatever you want to call it, it can be a difficult thing to do.

Since I first began to ‘practice this principle in all of my affairs,’  I seem to notice a lot more opportunities for letting go.

Letting go of a loved one in the best of situations is difficult.  I see a lot of folks dropping off their young adults at college for the first time.  It is a tough transition.  Certainly, moving your kids off to take jobs that are thousands of miles away, can be even harder, knowing that it isn’t just for four years.

But, when you have a child who faces an addiction, that letting go, is a different beast altogether.  In that instance, you know that you are placing a loved one who can’t make sound decisions for themselves, in a very vulnerable position.

To summons the courage to let go in that situation, requires monumental trust. I learned just how key those twelve-steps are in growing my relationship with God. It is imperative to realize that it is only when I place my loved one into the loving arms of God, that there will  be hope.

Ignatian Spirituality offers a number of tools to become better aquatinted with God.  When I ‘look for God in all things, I begin to understand his very nature.’ For me, I can get to know him best in nature.  That is where I’ve found Him this summer as I’ve helped both of my girls move out west.

I’ve driven from Tennessee to Texas and then just last week from Tennessee to Southern California.  It was the first time that I’ve seen how massive and rugged this country really is.  I was in awe.  It was impossible not to find God in the changing landscape.

For whatever reason, the song, ‘Wide Open Spaces’ kept coming into to my consciousness.  So, I looked up the lyrics:

“Who doesn’t know what I’m talking about–who’s never left home, whose never struck out?  To find a dream and a life of their own..a place in the clouds, a foundation of stone…

Many precede and many will follow.  A young girls dreams no longer hollow.  It takes the shape of a place out west.  But, what it holds for her she hasn’t yet guessed.

She needs wide open spaces, room to make her big mistakes.  She needs new faces. She knows the high stakes.

She traveled this road as a child.  Wide-eyed and grinning, she never tired.  But, now she won’t be coming back with the rest.  If these are life lessons, she’ll take this test.”

She needs wide open spaces.  Room to make her big mistakes.  She needs new faces.  She knows the high stakes.  She knows the high stakes.

As her folks drive away, her dad yells, “check the oil.” Mom stares out the window and says, “I’m leaving, my girl.”  She said, “It didn’t seem like that long ago.” When she stood there and let her own folks know.

She needed wide open spaces.  Room to make her big mistakes.  She needed new faces.  She knows the high stakes.  She knows the high stakes……”

I sing those words and look at this cycle that is life and I see how much I have in common with those who suffer from an addiction.  We all make our big mistakes.  We all know the high stakes.  We all take this journey where we wander off from the God who we understand until one day, hopefully we return to Him, knowing a more loving and gentle God than the one we took leave from.

They say that alcoholism is a spiritual malady.  I’d say that there a host of ‘ism’s’ that we all suffer from.  I hope to see you on the journey.  I pray for you to have the courage to let go of what you don’t need and to accept what God has to offer.

It reminds me of the St. Francis prayer.  We are living the great paradox where if we let go, we can gain the whole world.