Sometimes the Hardest Act of Love is Letting Go

Letting go doesn’t mean that you don’t care about someone anymore. It’s just realizing that the only person you really have control over is yourself.
 
     Deborah Reber, Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul

Letting go of our control over another person is often one of the hardest things we ever have to do.

Any parent knows this. Even when their kids are young, it’s incredibly difficult to let them risk hurting themselves. When having to remove the training wheels from a bike, knowing that there are going to be falls before their child gets the hang of it – scrapes, cuts and brush burns are going to be part of the process. Or, sending a child to school for the first time, knowing that other kids will inevitably hurt them, taunt them or ignore them. Putting them in the hands of another authority figure – a teacher – and acknowledging that others now will have great influence over their development. Letting them drive alone. Taking them to college and saying goodbye. Walking them down the aisle and into the lives of another. Sending them off to war. All of these are rites of passage that require letting go.

It’s hard for parents to let go of their own dreams and aspirations for their children. It’s hard not to want to control who they date, who they marry, what they do for a living, where they live. There is a strong parental instinct to protect our children. But there comes a time, even when they’re young, when we have to begin to allow them to learn to make mistakes, to take some risks, to discover some independence through life lessons on their own.

Recently we spoke with a man who had mentored a boy for nine years. The boy is now a young man. He came from a broken home; his dad was in and out of prison and didn’t play an active role in his life. The young man has fathered a child from a drunken one-night stand. He’s done time in juvenile detention. Our friend talked about how heartbroken he was that the young man he mentored was going down a similar path as his father. He has reason to believe that he’s doing drugs, hanging out with others who are dangerous influences, sleeping around. His older brother is already further down that road.

The hardest part for our friend is that there is nothing else he can do, but to hope and pray and be available if the young man shows up at his door.

It makes us think of the story of the “Prodigal Son” – or as we have come to see it, the story of the “Loving Father”. In his book, The Return of the Prodigal Son, Henri Nouwen uses as a basis for his writing about letting go, Rembrandt’s painting of the same name. In the painting, the father is embracing his younger of two sons. His son returned home after taking a share of his inheritance well before the father’s death–squandering it on frivolities. He eventually comes back broken and defeated. But his father embraces and receives him, nonetheless.

Nouwen writes –

Looking again at Rembrandt’s portrayal of the return of the younger son, I now see how much more is taking place than a mere compassionate gesture toward a wayward child … The father couldn’t compel his son to stay home. He couldn’t force his love on (him). He had to let (him) go in freedom, even though he knew the pain it would cause both his son and himself. It was love itself that prevented him from keeping his son home at all costs. It was love itself that allowed him to let his son find his own life, even with the risk of losing it.

 The central point of this story is the father’s love. Knowing that his son would make a mess of his life, he still allowed him to go, to learn for himself that which he couldn’t teach him. The father knew that his son had lessons to learn and gave him the freedom to learn them, even though the learning might come through struggles, loss and pain. That was a generous act of love.

The concept of letting go as an act of love comes up in so many aspects of our lives. Whether it is a parent dropping a son off at school for the very first time, giving a child the keys to the family car or kissing a daughter on her wedding day, sometimes letting go of control is the most significant gift we can give.

We see it all the time. It’s also about letting go of resentments, letting go of expectations, letting go of burdens, letting go of disappointments, letting go of anger, letting go of grief, letting go of hurt, letting go of prejudices, letting go of wrongs. This is the key to healing and finding happiness, joy, peace again. It is the key to healing our brokenness and our pain.

Otherwise, we are constantly in conflict. We want to control others, but we can’t. We will always be miserable when we try.

Letting go is an ultimate act of love for others. It’s also an ultimate act of love for ourselves.

Photo by Micah Hallahan on Unsplash