30 - Letting Go

Day 30: React to this term - Letting Go

Patience took you for everything.
It looked like a diamond ring,
But you wore it so much longer than made sense...
Honesty is what you need;
It sets you free, like someone to save you.
Let it go, but hurry, though.
There's undertow, and I don't wanna lose you now!
~Someone to Save You, One Republic

I love me some old school One Republic. "To fight for you is all I've ever known." "You say I'm lucky to love something that loves me, but I'm torn as I could be wherever I roam."  Mmmm.  Ryan Tedder really puts his heart into his music (both lyrics and singing), and I adore it!

"Let it go, but hurry, though. There's undertow, and I don't wanna lose you now!"  Brilliant.  One of my favorite lyrics ever, and that's a ridicu-long list to choose from.  This song is him encouraging a female friend to let go of a one-sided relationship.  She's wasting her time and hurting herself, holding onto false hope for a proposal that will never happen. And in the midst of all the false encouragement, he's daring to be honest with her.  I love that.  I've been her, and I've been the voice of honesty for others.  But of course, hope is hard to kill, and letting go of someone you love is excruciating.  So we wait, and we cling, and we don't realize it's slowly killing us.  We all need friends who will be honest with us even when we don't want to hear it, and friends who are compassionate and experienced enough to understand this undertow concept.  All the cliche advice and peppy encouragement in the world just won't cut it here.  I love the phrasing in this song - it's a perfect metaphor for what happens after you let go of someone you love - a strong current beneath the surface that others don't typically see at all, but the person in it can FEEL it threatening to pull them under and drown them if they don't fight it with all they have.
Good times.

So I guess my reaction to the term is generally negative... letting go is always PAINFUL, but God does bring GOOD out of it when we love Him.  It brings to mind my verse for this year - forgetting the past and pressing forward.  It also makes me think of this season of my life, and this one.  And of course, Queen Elsa in Frozen. ;)

It's funny how some distance makes everything seem small,

And the fears that once controlled me can't get to me at all.

Up here in the cold, thin air, I finally can breathe.

I know I left a life behind, but I'm too relieved to grieve!

Standing, frozen, in the life I've chosen.

You won't find me; the past is all behind me,

Buried in the snow...

Let it go.