I am surprised at the process of letting go. As I approach retirement, I have to do a few things. Clean up my office. Reorganize my files. Distribute some books. Each one of these sounds like it falls in the category of housecleaning, but that is the surprise.
I don’t like letting go of things. Maybe some old files, some old projects, but probably not the books. Even if I have little chance of using them I still want them. Volumes of Greek dictionaries. Hebrew dictionaries and concordances. Lotsa stuff I’ll never use.
So what’s the grief? Isn’t this a good thing? Why should it be troubling? I think I am missing past unfinished things. I have to admit, now I won’t improve my biblical language skills. I hate to let that go. I won’t spend time studying Luther’s Works. This is too much work for my energy. I hate to let that hope go.
What is there to do about this? How can I let go? I think I let go better when I put down what I am doing to reach out for a new thing. I mean, exchange the past for the future. This is really a faith thing. I need to trust in the future.
All of us have a support for doing this, for trusting in the future. We even say it out loud to one another. Christ has died, Christ is Risen, Christ will come again. There is the future! Not on a calendar but in a person. The person is our Lord, who owns the future and brings it to us! Our grieving over the past is replaced by joyful anticipation of the future.
There. I feel better. But I still need to go through a batch of books.
Pastor Tom