Hold On, Let Go

Seems like most of my blog posts are related to a song of some sort. Sometimes there are songs that just resonate, echo, explode, calm, fill the empty place, or make the jumbled thoughts in your mind clear.

I wish I could make songs like that. Perhaps I could, if I could really let myself go and focus on it. I've never...really let myself though.

[Sidetrack:  If there were a Music and Lyrics of my life, I would definitely be the Lyrics part of the duet. I'd rather have someone besides Hugh Grant as my Music though...just saying. And I'm nothing like Drew Barrymore, I'm quite sure. (We both are female and live in America and speak English, but the similarities pretty much end there.)]

My parents recently came to visit. My mom told me that she sometimes thought that of all her children, I am the most expressive. I think I kind of laughed at the time...but since, I have felt that the need to express yourself, and to try so hard to do it perfectly, and then to fail but keep trying, is actually really difficult, hard, and not very much fun, to boot. As I have been thinking about expressing myself, and the emotions in my life I am trying to sort through, as usual, things came to me in my head in a song.

This song came to me from a familiar source; however, the source told me to focus on the lyrics, which almost never happens. (It is not a completely clean song, lyrics-wise, which also surprised me, considering the source -- but by no means is it anywhere close to explicit. In fact, they play much more offensive things on the radio every day.)

It reminds me of a story -- one I read in Book Club this summer, about Corrie Ten Boom. She watched the love of her life marry for money. For her, there would never be another, and she, in tears, wondered aloud how she could possibly kill love, love that was strong, love that she had nurtured. Her father told her that the better thing to do would be to give her romantic love for this person to God, and pray that she could love the love of her life as God did.

When I read it, I cried. I thought she was brave, and bold, and how horribly, horribly sad it was that she would never experience the kind of love she had dreamed of as a little girl ever again. She, being the strong, amazing person that she was, truly followed her plan. Not only did she do that with the love of her life, but I truly believe she tried to see every person who came into her path as God saw them.

Part of being able to do as Corrie did is what is mentioned in this song: "At least I hold on when I get love, and I let go when I give it." She held on to the love she had for her mother, father, sister, refugees, the Bible, God, colors, and, eventually, even was thankful for fleas! She held on tight to the memory of the love even when she was in a concentration camp, not knowing if she would survive. And she let go of love, too. She let go of her resentment toward the fleas, for the horrid conditions, for the mistreatment of the guards...of everything. And you can bet she loved those little fleas that were so pesky, because of the freedom the fleas afforded her and her fellow roommates. She cast her love net wide and did not bother to pull it back, but just kept sending out tendrils of love.

The other part that resonates is the part about taking the weakest thing in you and beating everyone else with it. Sometimes I think my weak things can't beat anything but myself--and myself, they can beat very effectively, as they know the most tender places with the freshest wounds. But weak things can become strong, and there is nothing, nothing in this world or the next as powerful as true love.

That's all you can do--be grateful for the love that you have. And when you give it, you don't know how the people you give it to will use it- if they'll return it, perhaps with interest, or if they'll hightail it out of sight and never come back. So, even though it is impossible to do this, it seems the song would advise you to have no expectations that anyone or anything will love you back. It is certainly an interesting idea to think about. In the meantime, I am going to give freely, with the best of myself-- as I wrote almost four years ago in this post. I'm going to hold on to the love that I get, tight tight tight, and when I give love, I will send it toward the other person with everything I've got, letting go completely. Only when you open yourself are you completely free.