Let The Pain Go, And Emotions Too Heavy To Carry
Let The Pain Go,
and emotions too heavy to carry.
Putting down your load may not change the situation,
but it will change you.
A college professor stood before his class holding a glass of water.
“How heavy is this glass?” he asked his students.
“8 ounces.” “12 ounces.” “16 ounces.”
The guesses came forth from the students with no response from the teacher.
Finally the professor said, “How heavy the glass is isn’t the issue.
What really matters is how you hold it.
If I hold this glass for a minute, I hardly notice it. If I hold it for 5 minutes, my hand gets tired. And if I’d hold it for 5 hours, my arm would grow numb and feel paralyzed after I set the glass down.”
“The reason I’m telling you this story?
This is how we tend to hold onto the disappointments and trials of life.
If we hold them for a short while, then let them go, we hardly notice them.
However, if we hold them and hold them and hold them, we end up thinking about them constantly, and the brain grasps the thoughts like the talons your fingers imitate after holding a glass for a long time, and can’t let them go. The negative thoughts go through your mind on a continuous loop.”
Let The Pain Go
Any one of us has likely held onto a “glass” too long. We may have even felt paralyzed, and didn’t know how to move on anymore.
How can we heal the paralysis that results from holding on?
From experience, I’d say it’s not an easy process.
It’s so much easier to force yourself to let things go when they’re new, even though the pain is agonizing and we feel what happened is so not fair. Because the longer we stew about it, the bigger it feels, and the more we feel we can’t forgive.
This must be why the Bible talks about the “work” involved in feeling peace. Because the feelings and the holding doesn’t go away by itself. You can’t just say, “Hey, this hurts, but I won’t think about it anymore. I’ll forgive and move on.” If you can do that, I wish you could teach me your secret.
Although, as I mentioned, experience has taught me that doing the work early on is much easier than waiting until I feel paralyzed.
Release Emotions Too Heavy To Carry
So how do we do this work of forgiving and/or releasing?
What tools in our “garden shed” can dig and dispose of this type of trash?
Billy Graham is our go-to man for 2023. (We have a calendar with his quotes here.)
He said there are 3 steps to forgiving…
First, we need to realize what an unforgiving spirit does to us. Anger and bitterness are like a deadly cancer, eating away at our whole being — body, mind and soul. The Bible warns, “whoever hates his brother … walks around in the darkness” (1 John 2:11). Why not let it go?
Second, we need to experience God’s forgiveness — and then forgive others in the same way. Why does God forgive us? Not because we deserve it, but because Christ loves us and died for us. In the same way, your [brother] may not “deserve” forgiveness — but ask God to help you love and forgive [him] anyway, just as Christ loves and forgives you.
Finally, tell [him] you have forgiven [him] — and then never bring it up again. Instead, begin to rebuild your relationship with little deeds of love that show you care.
Your heavy emotions are triggered by a situation or action. You have no control over how circumstances make you feel. But you do have control over the power you give those emotions by reacting and responding in the wrong way.
Releasing heavy emotions is not easy, and that’s the “work” of forgiveness and letting go.
We have to accept the pain, and its cause, before we can put down the load and journey on in joy.
The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart.
Psalm 34:18
So, in this New Year of Two Thousand and Twenty Three, I decide to
let the pain go.
I resolve to lay down heavy emotions and
drink from a light cup.
