Just ... let it go

Here's a simple way to look at life ... the first chapter of the book of James tells us this: "Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind comes your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So, let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing."

As a great mind once said, "Duh."

Read it again, in a slightly titled manner. Troubles come. That's an opportunity. For what? For great joy. Why? Your endurance has a chance to grow. So, let it do the whole rose bush thing, growing despite all those dang stickers and such. When the bush is fully grown, heck, you're perfect. You need nothing from Amazon at that point.

Read it again. 

Troubles arrive. You know, the kind of stuff that gives you a stomach ache. The kind of stuff that causes you to mourn and to ache and to grieve and to crawl into bed and bend at the waist and pull the covers up and did I mention ache and grieve and crawl and cough up, er, stuff?

Troubles like bills you forgot.
Troubles like pet illness.
Troubles that make you ask that haunting question, what's next? What could possibly be next? What on this whole dang planet could possibly be next? 
Troubles like your car dying days after the warranty you paid extra ends.
Troubles like a bad diagnosis.
Troubles the kind they sing songs about, the kind they write poems about, the kind your aunt and uncle shake their heads in sorrow about.
Troubles that accompany pastor's visits, that counselors come to talk to you about, that bankers get tense about.
Troubles that nobody knows what you've seen types.

The kind of stuff that causes joint swelling it's so bad. That kind. You know the kind.
And the Bible says, it really, truly says, is an opportunity. 

Let me recap.
WHATTTTT???????

You don't see the dang brake lights on the 71 Ford Mustang that has more dirt on it than paint and you pop the trunk so to speak, and it's your fault. YOUR fault. Your fault for not noticing. Your fault for not stopping. Your fault.

Ain't it always your fault?

Anyway, you don't brake in time because he didn't brake in time and the net thing you know, you've introduced yourself to Mr. Ford in an unfortunately intimate manner and there you go. It's YOUR fault. 

And it's an opportunity to get happy, happy, happy because, well, because James said it is.

The question becomes, what is this an opportunity for? How do we get joyful when we're sweating Coushatta bullets on a mean summer's afternoon?

The answer is, well, like Frozen told us, "let it go." 

When things are falling apart, let it go. When it's all falling apart, and grief is melting onto the melting pavement, let it go. When anger is spilling onto our kids because they're kids and we're not, let it go. When life is so far from fair that we can't even understand what we're doing here, let it go. Just let it go. Pick it up, pack it up, laugh it up and let it go.

Let the fighting go.
Let the splits go.
Let the hatred go.
Let the meanness go.
Let the missed opportunities go.
Let it all go. Set it free. Open the trap. Spring the defeats from their cell. Let the old' become El

Let those icy gray follicles die. 
Let those wasted paint chips go ahead and waste away, crying up in cans older than we. 
Let it go. Let it all go. 

Let it wash away like Red River overflow,  mess and mangle, limb and trunk, jellied and justified, flotsam and jetsam circling down nature's drain,  the leftovers of the world rushing by like they had an appointment somewhere this mournfully hot morning.

This morning, as flags come down and grievances go up, let's just let it all go. Let's quit worrying about what come next, quit burying our heads in the sands of disagreement and let it ALL go.

James says when the wagons circle, yet we live through it, the arrows sticking in cloth not skin, it's a good and joyful thing. I admit that idea does indeed appear. We've made it through the gates of hell and run through it with joysticks lining our path like little light standards. 

So, we rejoice because we understand that somehow all this has been let go. We made it, so the rest is just lagniappe. Life, that's life, is somehow creeping up and tickling us because we let it all go.

Get that? Just let it go. Let the pain and the obstacles go ahead and prepare our path for the joy that is to come.

Let it go, church. Let it go, friends. Let it go, enemies.

I got some living to do.