Learning to let go

I always wanted a horse when I was growing up.  My parents couldn't afford one.

So I hung around horsey places, I hung around horsey people just in case one of them might let me ride.  I put up with a lot of mistreatment at the hands of these people just to be near the horses.

Once I was at the barn / pasture where this one girl was boarding her horse.  She decided to give her mare a bath; it was a hot summer day and the bath would cool her horse off and give us something to do.  So we did - we washed and rinsed the giant beast, and we towel dried her as much as possible.  Then this girl suggested that I get on the horse - bareback, no bridle - and she would lead her around the pasture. 

I should have known what was coming.  We got to the far end of the field from the barn, and this girl let go of the animal's lead and just slapped her rump.  Princess took off trotting toward the barn.  I wasn't a very good rider and my legs flopped all over the place as I tried to "keep my seat."  My companion laughed at me. (WHOLE other post!) And then I did something - perhaps a leg slipped back toward the hind quarters, and Princess took the proper suggestion she thought was coming from me - and broke into a canter.  That's right.  She started to run.

I had absolutely no control.  Inside I was panicking, because she was headed straight for the fence.  Forgotten was any decorum or trying to "look good" or "do things right".  I was afraid for my life! 

My fantasy ride had turned into a nightmare.  I had to get off. That was the one thought in my mind.  Somehow, I still don't know how, I managed to kick one leg over her neck so that I was riding sideways on her back - my plan was to launch myself from her back, far enough to land clear of her pounding hooves.  And that's what I did, landing like a sack of potatoes on the ground, ripping my pants in the process!

The girl caught up with me, laughing her fool head off.  She gasped through the paroxysms of laughter that she didn't know why I got off; I was riding with the most perfectly balanced seat she had ever seen me ride with.  I was just glad to be alive.  Later though, I thought that perhaps the reason I had done so well was because I wasn't concentrating on having my hands here, my heels down, my calves in perfect alignment with and parallel to my spine, and my shoulders square.  My mind was completely otherwise occupied.  Granted, I was in survival mode!  But the point was that I had let go of my need to control the situation and was just focusing on the need of the moment.

I'm also told (though I have a hard time believing it because of my fear of the water) that the same thing happens when learning to swim.  I heard one fellow say just tonight that the point at which one can learn to swim is the point at which one can trust him or herself to the water.  The phrase he used was "let the water be the water."  That stuck in my mind. 

Let things be what they are.  Let God be who He is.  Let people be who they are.  Let myself be the me I am at the time, whether the reality is that I am sad, angry, joyous, or any number of different "MEs" that I can be.

It's not wrong to do that. It's not wrong to stand up for myself when a boundary is being crossed.  It's not wrong to feel angry when I am wronged.  It's not wrong to feel sad when I experience loss or loneliness. If I let go and let whatever it is happen, and just concentrate on the need of the moment without wondering where I'm going or where I've been, or whether I'll make it or not, or whether someone else will wreck everything, things do go better.  I find a balance I never knew I had, and when I look back at it afterward, I realize that this balance was actually God doing for me what I could not do for myself. Or perhaps it was Him making me aware that there was something that needed attention in my life. 

It's a scary place to be, this living in the moment, this letting go and letting God be God (just like letting the water be the water or forgetting what I'm "supposed" to be doing).  I don't always get it right.  Sometimes I forget and slip back into the old way of doing things and I've learned to trust that gut feeling of something not being right...and checking to see where I am spiritually. 

It doesn't feel safe somehow, giving up control of my life to God and letting Him run things.  But it feels right.