Letting GOOOOOOOoooo...

"Let Go and Let God, girl."

I can hear "them" now. Them being the Christians I grew up with and try to distance myself from. With maturity and fabulous discussions with friends, I am learning how much I am like those Christians and how much (in some ways, not many) I want to be like those Christians. The idea of faith, the belief of "letting go" and trusting, has been more than my adult mind has wanted to deal with.

So I ran. I ran from faith, from the Christians of my childhood, from my own spirituality, from the chaos of my life, from it all. I ran while looking back at my fears, thinking I would feel better as long as I could keep an eye on everything that was chasing me. This strategy worked out great as long as I kept moving. Then, the monster I created in my mind to represent my own spirituality let me know that by always looking back when running forward, I was showing huge amounts of faith that future steps would always be moving me toward safety. Damn monster! I fell forward in that instant. I tumbled and rolled, dust flying in my eyes, rocks scrapping my skin and ripping my clothes, overwhelming pain coming from every part of my body. When I did glimpse in front of me, I realized I was heading to a cliff. I tried to stop myself from tumbling. I grabbed around me for trees or limbs or something to slow me down. I found nothing. And just as I felt half my body plunge in the air, I grabbed the edge of the cliff. I looked up and saw no childhood Christians, no totaled Mazdas, no spirituality monsters, nothing. It was just me. Great! I guess this is where faith comes in. Here I am hanging on for dear life, and I am supposed to just trust that I will be safe. I am shook! Not only do I now have to let go, I have to fall for an indefinite amount of time fall before I am rescued by this faith stuff; if I am rescued at all.

Then I think- what if I am struggling with all my might to hold on to this cliff, fearing death and life and this moment and the next moment and all that is around me and all that is me, and I am only a foot off the ground. What if I have just allowed my fear to make me feel like I am going to fall into the Grand Canyon when I am really just an inch from safety. In my heart I don't think this is necessarily the case. I think it can be true if I want it to be. I don't. See I have a secret. I've got wings. I was born with them attached to my shoulder blades like a little angel. When I was a baby I would fly around my room and fall asleep on my ceiling. Somewhere along the line, I decided that I wanted to hide these wings so I could be like everybody else. I didn't want to let people see me fly cuz it might make them sad that they can't fly too. So here I am, 25 years old, hanging off a cliff for dear life and realizing that now it is time to fly. It is time to stop struggling, stop pretending, stop dimming my light, stop fighting my truth- and fly. "Let go and Let God," I hear my grandmother's voice calling to me from above. OK. I am closing my eyes, I am swallowing hard, I am taking a deep breath in, I am letting go...