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Reverend Candi's Comments

THE GATEPOST

The Hard Part
Some of us are more than ready for 2022 to be over. Some of us want to relish every last
minute of 2022. Some of us are not at all looking forward to 2023. Some of us feel all these
things at different times during the day.
The truth is that time does move on, and we must not only be willing to let go but we
must actually let go of what has passed in order to move into the new – the good, the bad, the
understandable, the mysterious, the beautiful, and the ugly. There have been plenty of each in
2022 and we can expect more of each in 2023.
Melody Beattie said, “Letting go doesn't mean we don't care.  Letting go doesn't mean we
shut down. Letting go means we stop trying to force outcomes and make people behave. It
means we give up resistance to the way things are, for the moment. It means we stop trying to
do the impossible--controlling that which we cannot--and instead, focus on what is possible--
which usually means taking care of ourselves.And we do this in gentleness, kindness, and love,
as much as possible.”
We don’t know the specifics of what the coming year will bring. Not knowing can be
both exciting and frightening, but God is calling us to be open to what does come and to all the
opportunities that come with it. Incidents and issues which at first may seem trying or even
disastrous may turn out to be blessings when they lead us down a different path than we expected
and there we find God’s will for our lives.
My friend, Jeff Talmadge, wrote in one of his songs, “You can pray a prayer that will
knock you to your knees, but the hard part is letting go.” It’s true. God encourages us to bring
all our hopes and fears, our desires and needs to him in prayer, but then we have to let go. We
have to turn it all over to God to do as God sees fit and in God’s own time. We may think we
know exactly what needs to be and how and when, but we are not God. The hard part is letting
go.
We start making plans for our lives long before we start school. Many of those plans get
modified or changed altogether as we grow and mature and we discover that there is more out
there in the world than we ever dreamed.
Sometimes it is not we who chose to change those plans. Life itself thwarts our plans.
It’s very hard to let go of what we really want or what we have always wanted, but as Joseph
Campbell said, “We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the life
that is waiting for us.”
There is life waiting for us in 2023 – as individuals and as a congregation. And we know
exactly what we will be doing in the coming year. We will live as the community of Jesus
Christ, serving him in many different ways. We will continue with many of our traditions. We
will discover new projects and needs that we can fulfill.
Frederick Buechner said, “We find by losing. We hold fast by letting go. We become
something new by ceasing to be something old. This seems to be close to the heart of that
mystery. I know no more now than I ever did about the far side of death as the last letting-go of
all, but now I know that I do not need to know, and that I do not need to be afraid of not
knowing. God knows. That is all that matters.”
God knows. That is all that matters.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, Candi