Letting Go, while holding on

Do you remember when you were a little child and you mastered the art of crossing the monkey bars? Maybe even skipping a bar or if you were a monkey bar master, maybe skipping two bars?

I remember when I learned.  

It was a big deal.  

It was hard for me to navigate monkey bars as a child; I dreaded letting go. I would hold until any movement or momentum that my body had held up to that point was gone until it was just like I was a dead weight, hanging from the bar. I would have to drop down, off the bars.  Not moving forward, at all.  Having to start over.  

I am not sure that there was a specific art to learning how to cross the monkey bars, but I do know that I had  to learn how to let go and hold on at the same time.  

See where I am going with this.  Getting super deep. 

Not really. But sort of. 

When you look at monkey bars it seems like no big deal to get to the other side.  You swing from bar to bar.Sometimes two hands are on one bar gripping and it almost makes it harder to get to the next bar.  Because when you let go you have nothing propelling you forward.  You held on too tight for too long. Conversely if you let go with both hands there isn't a high likelihood that you will make it to the next bar either.  

It is in the letting go that you are showing your faith -- faith in the middle -- by still holding on.  

I am trying to let go while still holding on.

Trying is the most I can do right now.  

It takes everything I have.  

Letting go is really hard for me.  Always has been.  

I don't like the control to be in someone else's hands.  

But here is the thing.  

It is in the letting go, while still holding on that we show our faith in the midst or middle of our crisis, challenge, struggle, whatever it might be. 

My struggle happens to be cancer.  

But you already know that.  

What you might not know is that there are other things I struggle with  -- like being a parent, and serving at church and keeping a clean house and being a good wife and not being bugged at little things and not wanting to punch people in the face, you know? 

Just like you. 

And I might not know what you are holding on to right now. 

What struggle's are we all up against that are maybe just too hard to let go of? 

We all have them.  

Mine is just more visible.   

Especially now that I took all my hair off.  

I mean, maybe not, maybe you think I just really rock the buzzed hair and it has nothing to do with cancer or chemo or hair loss.  Let's just go with that.  

Here is the thing about letting go.....you have to hold on and let go at the same time. 

Similar to trying to navigate the monkey bars as a child

our journey with our Heavenly Father -- earth life and trying to become more like Him, trust Him requires us

to reach higher,

to hold on tightly to Him,

and 

to keep moving forward,

and 

trust that if we fall

we can get up and try again.

I often forget, or fail to remember that I am still a child; a child of God.  He is there to help me navigate these crazy monkey bars that I call cancer -- my struggle.  

He is also there for your struggles, challenges and we have to work to have faith. 

Faith in the letting go while holding on.  

and now I am done waxing eloquent and need to go clean my always dirty house.