“For everything there is a season... a time to break down, and a time to build up... a time to keep silence, a time to speak... a time to seek, a time to lose.”
~Ecclesiastes 3:1a, 3b, 7b, 6a (NRSV).
Sometimes we resist change and sometimes we don’t.
We fear enforced change, not understanding that change—almost any personal change—is inherently blessed, and blessed we are to be gentling with it (the best way we can).
Life is seasonal in nature. We have patterns of activity and relative inactivity that fix themselves in us for a time—perhaps a couple of months—and then we just as easily do some things different or differently. Yet, we can very easily be fooled in that mini-season that this is ‘us’—the be all and end all. We then begin to fret at the mere notion of change—often only thought-about change—as if change is going to require us to come to it with our arms crossed behind our backs and yelping for mercy.
One Wisdom – That of Surrender
It is obviously a key wisdom to know when and when not to surrender; but that knowing surrender is the ultimate, eventually.
There are perhaps changes in your workplace. It’s been decided and you’re part of it. It’s the end of one season for you and the beginning of another. Taken as a conscriptee or a prisoner-of-war? The former has surrendered not to the enemy but to the circumstance, deciding to run with the flow that is beyond itself. The latter kicks against the pricks, and does so for little or no benefit. It fights something that cannot be fought with. There is no sense to it. This latter person cannot deal with their newfound truth.
As we age and grow gracefully through our years we will have grand opportunities at the letting go of many precious things.
Our ever-growing wisdom—the tempering of the years to the assuaging of the heart—commends us for heeding what our lives are surely telling us. Many things might be becoming strictly beyond us.
How well are we surrendering those very dear things that are swiftly becoming no longer ours?
Finding Peace in Release
It is true that whatever holds us captive in this life—and there are so many things, good and not-so-good—keeps us captive.
The less kept we are to even the most minute thing, the better off we are to not only ourselves, but our families, our employers and our communities.
Seen that way it’s almost a moral responsibility to find peace in release.
© 2010 S. J. Wickham.
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