She let go.

I heard it was good, so upon request my friend, Carol, sent to me a talk she gave at a group event. I think I’ve shared this piece on letting go but some things need to be our home screen and for me, this is one of them.

Carol quotes another Carol, Kuykendall:

We might remember our first trip up the mountain most vividly, yet as we repeat the process, we begin to understand that relinquishment is not a single act. It’s a lifelong attitude of the heart that roots out all sense of possessiveness and control in an openhanded, total surrender of our treasures to God.

Letting Go

To let go doesn’t mean to stop caring, it means I can’t do it for someone else.

To let go is not to cut myself off, it’s the realization that I can’t control another.

To let go is not to enable, but to allow learning from natural consequences.

To let go is to admit powerlessness, which means the outcome is not in my hands.

To let go is not to try to change or blame another; I can only change myself.

To let go is not to care for, but to care about.

To let go is not to fix, but to be supportive.

To let go is not to judge, but to allow another to be human.

To let go is not to be in the middle arranging all the outcomes, but to allow others to affect their own outcomes.

To let go is not to be protective; it is to permit another to face reality.

To let go is not to deny, but to accept.

Te let go is not to nag, scold, or argue, but to search out my own shortcomings and to correct them.

To let go is not to adjust everything to my desires, but to take each day as it comes.

To let go is not to criticize and regulate anyone, but to try to become what I dream I can be.

To let go is not to regret the past, but to grow and live for the future.

To let go is to fear less and love more.

— Charles R. Swindoll in his book, The Grace Awakening

Friend Carol said, “Convinced that God needed me to ‘fix’, I came across an Amy Carmichael quote that stopped me dead in my tracks. I may not be God’s best weapon in the war.”

Choose if your loved ones are to know all that I can be to them, or if they are to miss the best because they have you instead.

This week Carol let go of her life.  She had seen God fix many things but not her cancer. I’m so grateful to have known her, to have shared with her a love and awe of recovery.

At my last visit, she gifted me with the two books she scurried to finish before she died. Click on them for your own:

Life Lines: A 30 Day Reflection for Healing and Recovery

He Calls Us Friends

Carol was the Chaplain for the Spiritual Care Program at Rogers Memorial Hospital, Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, from 2005 to 2016. Our son was in treatment at Rogers during her tenure. She was a strong and gentle comfort to me.