Letting Go

It’s a common observation about parenthood that from day one you are learning to let go of your child. Losing the physical closeness of breast or bottle feeding and embracing the messy years of teaching children to use cutlery; dropping your child off for that terrifying first day at nursery or school. 

 

Then the middle years, full of children developing their own independence: when they stop holding your hand, cycle faster than you can run, choose their own clothes, take a bus by themselves or go out for a meal with friends. 

And then the scariest of all, the late teens when they learn to drive and maybe even leave home for good (or at least until rents force them home again!).

All parents go through it. We know it’s a natural, necessary process and our job is to make it as easy as possible, and not allow our children to see our regrets.

 Writing is similar, albeit over a shorter time period (I write slowly, but not 18 years slowly!). The idea of what to write, the birth of that idea when we first put words onto a page. The middle stage when we develop and craft the words until they are as clear and well-chosen as possible. Finally the late stages, when we launch our hard work into the world and hope that we have done a good job.

We can pray that our piece is well received and that it blesses others in the same way that the process of nurturing it has blessed us. But we have to let it go and ignore any tinges of regret. Because let’s be honest, no work is ever completely ‘finished’.

The pride when we see our work published is like the pride when we see our much-prayed-for, grown-up child thriving in the adult world. The pain is the same too, when either of them fail.

I wonder if Jesus feels similarly about the church. Was he filled with trepidation when he sent the confused and barely-believing disciples out on mission? Was it a wrench to ascend to heaven and leave the task of sharing his gospel to his church? 

 

The church is ‘to shine like stars in the sky,’ as Paul says in Philippians 2. To continue Christ’s ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5). Trusting that role to a group of argumentative and selfish human beings is the ultimate example of letting go.

 Except of course, that God hasn’t really let us go. He has promised to be with us always. With us, with our children and with our work. God goes out into the world with all our creations.

So for all of us who have let go and sent our writing out on its own, I pray that God will use it and be close to those who read it.