holding loosely

a blog by Julie Hunt

"In relationships, I have found that we really must find the important balance between holding on tight and letting go. As individuals, we often tend towards one extreme or the other, depending on our personalities, family history and disposition. There are dangers inherent in each of these approaches.

When we hold tightly in relationships, we might very well have a grip on the person, in that we are not going to lose them. But, there is a risk in holding tightly. We just might choke, smother, or suffocate them.

In contrast, if we take the posture of letting go, we will not be as intrusive or harsh as when we are holding tightly. We might easily lose the thing we are holding, and communicate a lacksidasical spirit.

It is risky.

Imagine a delicate, colorful butterfly flitting around your yard and lighting on your hand. How would you hold it? If you held your hands completely open, palms flat, chances are it would fly away. In contrast imagine if you squeezed your hands together and held on tightly, in fear of losing her. It might crush her.

But what if you cupped your hands, to where they created a safe, enclosed, yet spacious place for her to be?

When I was in college, my wise friend, Jen, was counseling me, as I was brokenhearted. I had been misled by a boy and was emotionally wrought. She encouraged me to “hold loosely” to this relationship. She gave me the gift of this metaphor and I have carried the wisdom from that moment with me for two decades.

Holding loosely is the balance between holding tightly and letting go.

It’s not losing a hold, and relinquishing, like letting go, but it’s not the gripping, desperate feeling of holding tightly. The posture of holding loosely communicates: “I am here, I want to be with you, I am holding onto you. However, my hands are gently holding, with as much space as I can create for you to breath and move,”

This holding loosely corresponds with Jesus’ command to “love your neighbor as yourself”. How do I want to be held in relationships? Possessively clutched in a way that can crush me? No. Or, conversely – open handed with no hold or security offered or effort exerted? No. Rather, I want to be held in the gentle hold of a loving, open, spacious space of a caring other. There I find love and security and yet room to breath and become my truest self. Within this posture, we love our neighbor as ourselves.

This principle has been applicable in all of my relationships: with family, and girlfriends, children and co-workers, even with my husband and children. We all desire to be known, loved, cherished, understood and not forgotten. And we all want to find grace, openness, and freedom. We want to be our truest, best selves. We often become that within the context of healthy relationships."


i am thankful that God has given me someone who holds me loosely.

embedded

a blog by Randi Helm:


"This has been a long few years for me. Like so many, I’ve been in the throes of dire situations with seemingly no way out. I sometimes look back and think, wow, I can’t believe what I’ve been through, and am still going through.

Pulling the curtain back on my life I get the clear impression that I am embedded. I am nestled right in between a rock and a hard place with little to no wiggle room. This season has formed around my soul and engulfed me.

Softly I hear the voice of my Heavenly Father speak,
“The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.” (Exodus 14:14 NIV)
But in order to hear Him I have had to be quiet and I am not often quiet when I struggle.

When difficult things happen I think it is so natural to fight, kick, fuss and try to change things. When you put your hand in the flame you the pain makes you instinctively pull it back out. I am a fixer by nature. I’m always trying to problem solve and I have not had much success with all the complicated and unresolved problems that loom over me. The frustration that things haven’t changed is the most difficult for me.

But there is something that is beginning to change. It’s me. At times I feel like a child who is held tight during a full blown tantrum. Finally, I am beginning to rest out of pure exhaustion in the arms of my loving Father. I have no energy to fight, fuss or even pray for that matter if I’m being honest. In this emerging moment of my life I really begin to grasp that the Lord understands. I have to face my weakness in order to embrace His sufficiency.
“In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.” (Romans 8:26 NIV)

When He tells me to be still, He means it. It is for my own good. In being still the Spirit of God goes before the Father on my behalf to pray for me. It’s in this act of surrender that heaven touches my soul and I get a sense that there is more to what I’m going through than meets my eye and I begin to wonder.

Perhaps becoming embedded has freed me in a way I had never thought of before. Oh don’t get me wrong, I so feel like a prisoner at times but I’m finding freedom in ways I had not expected. Being imbedded forces me to discover the promises of God. I will either be swallowed up by fear, anger and doubt or choose a different path. The power of God is at work here. Only the Lord could make me have a desire to rest in His promises. Left to myself, I would lose the battle with fear.

Once again, I softly hear the voice of my Heavenly Father whisper the words King David wrote,
“Those who know your name will trust in you, for you, LORD, have never forsaken those who seek you.” (Psalm 9:10 NIV)

I would not need to hear these words if I weren’t embedded. I could not know the realities found in this promise if I hadn’t been here."

my (other) heart

"My heart.

Not the one in my chest that beats to keep me alive, where blood pulses and chambers open and close.

My other heart.

The one intangible, yet the one I feel all the time. The one that has no beat, yet is the key to my life. The one which can’t be touched with a surgeon’s knife, yet feels pain more keenly than any other limb or organ in my being.

That heart.

It has known joys, it has lived through sorrows, it has soared with sheer delight and it has carried agony.

Even more so, it has known the dull ache of chronic pain. The kind you just can’t shake. And just when you think you’ve fended it off for the last time, things are revealed (even if they’ve been known before) and the heart feels them fresh and new and it hurts. The heart remembers what it has been through – not in an unforgiving way, but in a way that says, “I will never let this happen to me again.”

It’s a trust issue to let God handle our hearts and hurts when in actuality we would rather let the person who hurt us know just how deep the pain runs. I’d much rather inflict a little as payback than concentrate on what I need to do to get better. It’s my healing I need to be concerned with. It’s my progress that I need to look to God for.

I know this……God is the only one who can heal my wounded (other) heart.

And as it heals, there’s a weak spot where the break was. A spot that’s prone to give a little now and again; not coming fully unattached as perhaps it had done before, but opening up just enough to let my tears gently wash over and through, cleansing out the debris living in there which keeps it from adhering together once again. One day my tears will cease and the mend will fuse, but there will be a scar as a remnant and reminder of what went before….fixed now, but with a permanent change to the landscape so that I don’t go down the same road again and sear it open for a second time.

God’s provision to keep forgetful me and my (other) heart on the straight and narrow.

My heart.

The one I can’t see, hear, smell or touch.

But that one that I can, most definitely, feel."

By Beth Coulton

when we're not ready..

spring semester is upon us and i am treading to stay afloat. after Christmas break being far from a break, i realize how exhausted, weary, and worn i am. and so the whirlwind hit yesterday, and i was not ready. i had not taken the time to brace myself for what was to hit. and i felt the tidal wave crash. and the storm began to shake my boat. but then i remembered i was standing on the Rock. i remembered who my Anchor was, and that He is unshakable, He stands unconsumed, unoverwhelmed. i'm not ready, but i'm gripping to my Anchor and i know He will see me safely to shore, whether that shore is in sight or a long ways off, i have this Hope as an anchor for my soul. He may not silence the storm, but He delights in silencing His child in through the storm.




today i read this in a blog by Kate Davis, and it spoke right to my heart:

“God does not wait for the world to get ready, He enters right into the mess...He doesn’t mind that I am not ready yet and He doesn’t mind the wretched condition of my heart or the stench of my sin. God’s time is now and He enters into the mess, ready or not. His perfect timing, now. Now is where He has called us. And we are just not ready yet. We need to clean up the house a bit and pray a little more and seek more counsel and we don’t know how to do that yet and oh, we have our excuses. And God says, “I’m here now, and I am ok with the mess because I am here for the messy.” God doesn’t need us to be ready for Him; He has been ready for us since the beginning of time and the Messiah is here calling us to commune with the Holy One, to eat at His table. Looking back I remember that never, not once, was I really as ready as I wanted to be. And I remember that God kept all His promises, every last one, in His perfect time. This new season looms and I don’t know what is next. But He doesn’t need me to be ready for this season because He is ready. He just needs me to be clinging to His feet. Now, God’s perfect time.”

life in the stroller..

today as I ventured on a run I had made it a few blocks when I saw a little brother and sister prancing around the street followed by their mother pushing an empty stroller. no sooner did I notice them did I see the boy face plant on the ground. his motherly glided to his side and tenderly picked him up and placed him in the stroller. as they continued on the boy inspected his wounds with a frown on his face and tears in his eyes.

Daddy sweetly spoke to me through this. It’s as if He was saying “Amy, that little boy is you. so many times in life you are prancing along and then something will pop up in the road causing you to plummet to the ground. but don’t worry Amy, I will always be right beside you to pick you up and put you in the stroller. your journey will always continue Amy. you may stumble, but you will never fall so far that I cannot pick you up again. Amy, just sit in stroller My sweet baby girl. let Daddy tend to you.”

as some of you know my dear grandpa bud went to be with Jesus a week ago tomorrow. although joyful that He is with His Savior, the past week I found myself going from prancing to smack dab face down on the pavement upon hearing the news and entering the whirlwind which followed. but, my Father constantly had me buckled in the stroller, because He knew I couldn’t walk through this alone. that my bumps, bruises, and scratches needed to be mended before I could even think about getting up to walk again. and He so beautifully illustrated that for me today.

I am so thankful and blessed for times when life knocks me down to the ground because this is when I am reminded of my uttermost dependency on Jesus, my desperate need to rely on Him daily, for EVERYTHING, even breathing..through the good and the bad. the truth is we are NOTHING without Him. our life is only found in the One who was raised from the dead to give us life, and life abundantly.

i guess in a way if a stroller represents our dependency on Christ we need to view it as our constant location. are you in the stroller today?

he went to Heaven on the last day of 2011.

it’s new years eve. and usually that means I would be busy with my year in review, taking time to look back and remember all the Lord has done the past year and the lessons He has taught me. two days ago I attempted to begin this year’s recollections, but today, on the last day of 2011, my grandpa bud journeyed Home to Heaven. and of course this has catapulted me into a whole different thought process, a whole different form of remembrance. so this one goes out to you, grandpa bud!

my grandpa bud knew this world wasn’t his home. he knew it was just a waiting room until he reached Home, and he anxiously awaited the day when Heaven would become a reality. with joy and a heavy heart, I can say that today was that day! “his heart failed,” they say. but I know that his heart’s longing for Heaven just got too big that it just exploded. He wanted to be with Jesus and so he went.

my grandpa was the most precious, cutest old man ever. i don’t care what anyone else says.




my grandpa was stubborn, but the positive side of this stubbornness was his loyalty. my grandpa bud was one of the loyalist people I ever met. if anyone needed anything, they knew who to call.

my grandpa was a man of integrity. he worked hard, never taking the easy way. my grandpa showed mercy. if someone could not pay him the rent for the building he owned, he waited patiently until they could. when the war came, he served his country faithfully.



my grandpa has been a faithful husband for over 65 years to grandma betty. I once asked him what made his marriage last. he said the Lord and compromise, that they were in it together. I loved to watch them so tenderly care for each other. sure, at times they butted heads, but they grew old together. he couldn’t hear, she can’t see..but together they took on the world.



my grandpa LOVED fishing. he was a fisher of men, but many a perch and northern did he catch in his day. minnows and worms, he choice of bate. to him, fishing was the closest thing to Heaven on Earth. some days he would let others join him, friends and family. I remember going out on the boat with him when I was little, as I squirmed to take my first fish off the line, he put his hand on mine and showed me how. I thought he was so brave, and he was. after telling him that he couldn’t be out on the boat by himself any longer, he replied, “I’m never alone. It’s me and Jesus.” oh what times they must have shared out there on the peaceful lake, the sun rising and setting, the ripples on the water. what conversations they must have had. this was the place my grandpa’s soul could breathe. this was his place with Jesus that nobody else could take away. last night he had his eyes closed and my mom said “dad, you okay?” he said “I’m just dreaming.” She said “about what?” he said, “fishing.” I wonder if the fish are biting up in Heaven..





my grandpa loved the cubs. in his later days his schedule would revolve around the games. even when they lost, he was still their biggest fan, even if that meant he yelled at the T.V. he was also a baseball player himself. a catcher. he played for his church’s team. and he loved it.his knees and hips might not have..(but i thought the fact that one of his shoes had to have an extra wedge put on them was precious).

if my grandpa was on The Price Is Right, he would have won every single game. he watched it every day and had each game down to a science.

my grandpa loved to play games. SkipBo being one of his favorites. he was very competitive. probably one of the most competitive players I have ever met, but the joy which leaked out of him upon him winning..i trade losing every time to see that grin, hear that holler. I remember playing with him about a year ago. he told me, “now amy, this may be the last game you will ever play with me. well, gramps you were right. [I let him win, and yes I got to see the joy].



my grandpa always like to grab my toes and make a silly noise. it always made me giggle.

circus peanuts and pretzels..each time i eat them, I’ll think of you gramps.

my grandpa would sit back and watch. he could see behind people's fake masks. here we are last Christmas as he was telling me about who he knew died their hair and how they were living a lie. we sat and went around the room and he told me about each person in our family, the good and the bad. he took time to look beyond the surface.



bud would always say “you only live once, might as well make it good.” he usually would say this when he wanted salty food, food he wasn’t supposed to be eating. or a big piece of cake. (it was cute to watch him sneak these things. he was such a goober, always up to something). but he had a point. life is too short not to enjoy it.

I can still hear my grandpa walking along with this hymn on his lips “Wonderful, wonderful, Jesus is to me, Counselor, mighty God, Prince of peace is He. Saving me, keeping me from all sin and shame, Wonderful is my Redeemer. Praise His Name.” only now he sings it at the feet of the throne, face to face with Jesus.



so, for the new year, my dear friends, I encourage you all to love your grandparents. (and if your grandparents if the last day ordained for your grandparents has already past, be a surrogate grandchild to someone else). write them a letter. pick of the phone and call them. spend time with the elderly. encourage them. listen to their stories. soak up their wisdom. they have lived life. if they know Jesus, oh how sweet it is to see his faithfulness in someone who has walked daily with Jesus for so long [think about all you have learned since you started walking with Jesus and multiply that by a few decades..woah..right?]. and if they don’t, what better time to lead them to Jesus then when they are nearing death, when they realize that this world is not reality. there is purpose, even in old age. help them see that purpose. don't just take my word for it..it’s biblical!

“Age should speak; advanced years should teach wisdom.” - Job 32:7

“Rise in the presence of the aged, show respect for the elderly.” - Leviticus 19:32

“Wisdom is with aged men, with long life is understanding.” –Job 12:12



"soon you will read the newspaper that I am dead. don't believe it for a moment. I will be more alive than ever before."



“our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home.” (C. S. Lewis)

enjoy the inns this year dear friends, but know that Home just may be around the bend..and remember that physical life is nothing compared to all the LIFE we have in Him

“Your steadfast love is better than life. God's steadfast love in one hand with physical life in the other. His love trumps life every time.”

"He trained us first, passed us like silver through refining fires, brought us into hardscrabble country, pushed us to our very limit, toad-tested us inside and out, took us to hell and back; Finally He brought us to this well-watered place." -psalm 66:10-12 (the message)






"For You, O God, tested us; you refined us like silver. You brought us into prison and laid burdens on our backs. You let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, BUT You brought us to a place of abundance." -psalm 66:10-12 (NIV)