The really interesting thing about most of my formative teen years being spent in a church is that I have this very weird viewpoint of when I look at something through the lens of the late 90s- Early 2000s church.

When I hear certain phrases and they take me back to a cheesy worship song, or a quote or something that was drilled into my brain again and again.

One of my best friends and soul sisters, Joanna, and I have been through a master class in letting go this year. It comes at us from every direction, at every angle, amidst newsletters, emails, on instagram, on sundays. The message over and over, again and again: we need to let go.

Sometimes the letting go is obvious. Letting go of comparison, or frustration, letting go of hurt or expectations. Sometimes the letting go is up in the clouds, things that feel not real but are usually more real than we’d care to admit. But, big or small, the letting go is never easy. Clinched fists and echos of things that feel like facts that make the letting go feel like it doesn’t need to happen.

The last sunday words I wrote were about un-gripping from hope and letting it do its magic. I’ve been in a bit of a daze about how to go about that.

Trying to figure out how to allow myself hope and light and joy.
Trying to figure out how to let hope in.

Like I said, Joanna and I have had billboards every week about letting go and today she sent me an instagram that contained the words “Let go to let in”. And to circle back to the beginning of these words I was automatically taken back to high school youth group, to people in college, to words in church telling me I just needed to surrender and all the good things would come flooding into my life.

Also, let’s cut the crap and realize that all those moments, “all the good things” was a man.

But, I’ve been doing this christian and church thing for almost 25 years and I can very much tell you becoming a Christian and “surrendering” doesn’t make gold fall from the sky.
Or lumberjack looking men show up behind you at a coffee shop and pick up the things that fell from your purse.

So, today, when I saw those words all I could think about was this: what do I want to let in?
Joanna’s four year old daughter, my sweet and sassy niece Leo, wiser than all the people who pray the demons out of places, simply says this: if it’s good, let it come in.

And those words make me wonder-all those times in high school youth group and through college and small groups and everything in between; did I ever know what I actually wanted to come in.
We all have our lists. Our things we want and need. Our ideal partners, the best job, a house.
A Beauty and the beast library with a ladder.
But what about the abstract?

What about the words that live up in the clouds. The words that make you stand taller, walk with confidence. Speak with the ability to know you can back it all up.
How do you let all that in?

How do you move past a faith that always told you that the good things God brought were tangible and physical, into one that you know, which is a faith where the good things are simple, and not so simple, just you letting go and letting in to become who you were meant to be?

I think it’s so funny how everything in our life has to be a tangible. The house, the job, the man, the library with a ladder.
But what about letting in the things that make you realize that the house, the job, the man, the library with a ladder don’t actually matter.

What about letting in the fact that the minute you decided screw waiting for a wedding gift and you were going to buy your own damn kitchen aide; you had two in a week.
What about letting in that what you bring to the table isn’t something you hold in your hands.
It’s just who you are.

I know that I come across as a confident, know what I’m about, bad ass bitch.
That’s what I bring to the table.
But damn, sometimes letting that all in is really hard when it feels like the table is covered in the magazine clippings of all the reasons I am not any of it.

This past year has honestly been as if someone took the previous years of my life and just handed me the bookmarks of what has been and said: ok let’s try that again.
Again and again.

So, tonight, I’m saying outwardly, to the universe, to whatever is listening: I’m choosing to allow the good in. I’m choosing to allow myself to bring hope, light, joy and peace to the table.
I don’t have to hold it in my hands.
I just am.

So I’m gonna let that in.
I’m not going to feel shame or guilt about not feeling enough because the “tangible things” aren’t coming.
I’m going to continue to let go to let in.

(and honestly, I’m gonna build my own damn library)
With love,
Meg