Time To Let Go

'Time to Let Go', a sculpture in Traverse City, MI

One spring evening about twenty years ago I was running around a tree in our back garden. I was tired. My back was sore. With one hand I simultaneously pushed and held upright my youngest son's bike. He was riding it. Without stabilizers. For the first time.

I thought he would never get it. The bike wobbled precariously as he careered around the lawn, trying to keep his balance. The thought of giving up and trying again tomorrow was more than appealing, at least to me. But he clung to the handle bars, determined, his little legs whizzing around on the pedals. It was time. I let go.

And joy of joys...he was riding alone! We laughed as he continued to wobble, but despite several falls, my son no longer needed my hand. And the stabilizers were forever discarded.

Twenty years later, I am still letting go. In all sorts of ways, and of all sorts of things.

But I don't let go of joy. I don't let go of hope. I don't let go of the One who helps me keep my balance as I career through life, whizzing around worries, and pitfalls, and Lent.

How could I discard the best and strongest stabilizer I know, the One who is holding me, and all the children in my life, as we wobble home? I couldn't.