God Catches Our Balloons

God, Letting Go, Life, Trust 0

When my children were young, they loved brightly colored helium balloons.  But sometimes either accidentally or purposely, they’d let go of the string.  There they’d stand, with tears in their eyes, watching their precious balloon fly high into the heavens until it disappeared from sight.

When that happened, I’d tell them a story.

“Don’t cry,” I’d say.  “God’s up there.  And you know what?  He catches every balloon you let go of.  He’s keeping all of them just for you.  Someday, when you get to heaven, you’ll get every one back.”

My children are older now; so am I.  But we still believe God’s saving our balloons for us.

And I believe God catches all our balloons too — each one we let go of.  Only we don’t have to wait until we get to heaven to get them back.  The best and most perfect of our balloons, the ones just right for us, He gives back as soon as we’re ready to accept them.  Sometimes, He gives back better ones than we let go of.

— Melody Beattie, Beyond Codependency, p. 243

Your Own Wonderful Life

Joy, Life, Relationships 0

Frankly, I think it’s time we take a page out of their book.  The next time a guy you have a remote interest in fails to call you when he says he will, do not ponder the potential whys and wherefores of the situation.  If at all possible, be so busy with your own wonderful life that you simply don’t even notice he hasn’t called.  It would be great if you could just be so involved having a Big Time with all the people in your life who do right that if in fact he does call at some point, it takes you a minute to remember who he is.

— Jill Conner Browne, The Sweet Potato Queens’ Field Guide to Men, p. 195

God Must Reveal

God, Truth 0

Opinion is, at best, even the opinion of a true man, but the cloak of his belief, which he may indeed cast to his neighbor, but not with the truth inside it.  That remains in his own bosom, the oneness between him and his God.  St. Paul knows well — who better? — that by no argument, the best that logic itself can afford, can a man be set right with the truth.  He knows that the spiritual perception which comes of hungering contact with the living truth — a perception which is in itself a being born again — can alone be the mediator between a man and the truth.  He knows that, even if he could pass his opinion over bodily into the understanding of his neighbor, there would be little or nothing gained from it.  For the man’s spiritual condition would be just what it was before.

God must reveal, or nothing is known.  And this, through thousands of difficulties occasioned by the man himself, God is ever and always doing his mighty best to accomplish.

— George MacDonald, Your Life in Christ, p. 202-203

Willingness and Trust

God, Letting Go, Trust 0

Surrendering and letting go are about willingness and trust.  They’re about having enough faith to want something so much that we can taste it; then deliberately letting go of our desires and trusting our Higher Power to do for us what He wants, when He wants.  They’re about believing in God and His love for us even when it hurts….

We don’t have to surrender or let go perfectly.  We only need do it as well as we can, today.

— Melody Beattie, Beyond Codependency, p. 241

Questions

God, Life, Love 0

My faith in God, who is eternally loving and constant even as my understanding grows and changes, makes life not only worth living, but gives me the courage to dare to disturb the universe when that is what el calls me to do.  Sometimes simply being open, refusing to settle for finite answers, disturbs the universe.  Questions are disturbing, especially those which may threaten our traditions, our institutions, our security.  But questions never threaten the living God, who is constantly calling us, and who affirms for us that love is stronger than hate, blessing stronger than cursing.

— Madeleine L’Engle, Stone for a Pillow, p. 140, quoted in Glimpses of Grace, compiled by Carole F. Chase

Surrendering

Letting Go 0

What is surrendering?  What does it mean to “let go”?  Surrendering is accepting; letting go is releasing.  Surrendering is acknowledging the authority of a Higher Power; letting go is trusting His authority.

What do we need to surrender to and let go of?  Our past, present, and future.  Our anger, resentments, fears, hopes, and dreams.  Our failures, successes, hate, love, and desires.  We let go of our time frame, our wants, sorrows, and joys.  We release our old messages, our new ones, our defects of character, and attributes.  We let go of people, things, and sometimes ourselves.  We need to let go of changes, changing, and the cyclical nature of love, recovery, and life itself.

We release our guilt and shame over being not good enough, and our desire to be better and healthier.  We let go of things that work out and things that don’t, things we’ve done, and things we haven’t done.  We let go of our unsuccessful relationships and our healthy relationships.  We let go of the good, the bad, the painful, the fun, and the exciting.  We surrender to and let go of our needs.  Often, a hidden need to be in pain and suffering is underneath our failed relationships, pain, and suffering.  We can let go of that too.  All of it must go.

Surrendering doesn’t mean we stop desiring the good.  It means that after acknowledging our desires, we relinquish them and get peaceful and grateful about circumstances, people, and our lives exactly as they are today.

— Melody Beattie, Beyond Codependency, p. 240