When we travel, we pack:
- The shoes we’ll need for those various places we’ll venture
- The outdoor attire we’ll use for those all-weather conditions
- The outfits we’ll wear for those events, activities, and excursions we’ll experience
- And the leisure material we’ll enjoy for our reading, listening, watching, and playing pleasure
But if you’ve ever packed a suitcase for any type of trip, then you’ll know how quick and easy it is to reach over-capacity.
Recently, my son went on a trip, and as I was teaching him how to prep, pack, fold, minimize, rearrange, and weigh his luggage, I found myself saying:
“Ask yourself if you really need it. The heavier the suitcase, the more weight you’ll have to lug around.”
As the words left my mouth, my own heart paused:
When was the last time I weighed my life’s luggage?
- My emotional weight
- Mental weight
- Spiritual weight
- Physical weight
- Relational weight
- Vocational weight
Have I considered what heaviness I’m lugging around these days?
We may not have a personal attendant who checks our status at the kiosk (threatening us with an overweight penalty and a big orange ‘heavy’ tag on our suitcase), but what if an important element of the soul work of letting go is in personally attending to our limitations, and in practicing recognizing when we’ve reached over-capacity?
Having limits is not something our world likes to preach. In fact, the message to keep adding more to our suitcase is a pressure all too pervasive.
- One more meeting
- One more dollar
- One more vacation
- One more event
- One more rung on the ladder
But there’s profound wisdom in stopping to consider if we even need it. More importantly, when was the last time you invited God into that very question: Do I need this?
Perhaps the heavy suitcase you’re lugging around is weight you were never intended to carry.
Minimize. Rearrange. Weigh. Take things out. Let things go.
Perhaps all you really need is a carry-on.
—With Joy
Spiritual Director
Co-Founder & Content Director
cindy@joyover.com
Pause for Thought
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders (lay aside every weight, WEB) (strip off every weight that slows us down, NLT), and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us …”
Pause for Practice
The following contemplative exercise is a contribution from writer and spiritual director, Lindi Davidson [1]. During this practice, Lindi invites you to prayerfully consider, “What’s in Your Bag?”
As you read the following words in your own self-guided time and way, allow your imagination to engage with what surfaces for you. Invite The Holy to lead your heart and thoughts toward greater areas of freedom and release as you use this practice to explore the soul work of letting go.
—What’s in Your Bag?
You’ve come to a point on your journey where more and more things are unfamiliar. The food sources you took for granted are now scarce, your water sources have changed, and based on the new habitat, you will have to change your ideas on shelter.
You feel the way you often do when you’ve been going at it for too long.
So sit down, take off your enormous backpack, and empty all the contents on the ground.
In front of you is everything you’ve accumulated on the journey:
- Mementos from spaces you’ve inhabited
- Photos of people you’ve encountered
- Gifts you’ve gained and/or strengthened
- Items that have been mis-used or broken
- Remnants of things completely lost
Take a good, long look.
What do you see?
Not everything carried in will be carried out.
- What do you need to keep?
- What do you need to leave here?
Take time to reflect and invite God into the sorting process:
- Tell Him what you think and how you feel about prominent items.
- Allow Him to draw your attention to items and speak to you.
When you’re ready, you can begin to re-pack your bag, but there’s no rush.
Sometimes we must let things rest out in the open.
May God’s grace empower you to leave what is no longer in service, and may He fill the empty spaces with hope and wonder until new life is gathered into them again.
Amen.
Pause for Examination
As you read the following quote from author and Jesuit priest, Gerard W. Hughes, picture yourself standing over a suitcase. With each word you read, imagine what God would have you take out of your luggage and what He would have you put in. What necessities does God desire you to be carrying throughout life?
“Our Christian life is a pilgrimage in which we shed the self-centered ‘me’—the ‘me’ enclosed within my own fears, my own wants, my own kingdom, which excludes everyone and everything that does not serve to praise, reverence and serve me and those like me. In place of that ‘me’, I take on the new self, my Godself, who loves all creation in continuously giving God’s very self that we may live in peace with our selves, with all peoples, and with God, Heart of the Universe. This is where I find God and lose ‘me’, discovering a life that is full of surprises.” [2]
- [1] Lindi Davidson is a spiritual director, retreat facilitator and writer, passionate about helping people deepen their relationship with God and experience a vibrant faith and life. She loves coffee, jokes, rich conversation and lives in Saskatchewan with her husband and 4 boys.
- [2] God of Surprises by Gerard W. Hughes, р. x.
- The Soul Work of Letting Go – this month’s featured illustration by Dustin Heigh
- If you would like to share this issue of PAUSE with a friend – via text, social media, or email – just copy and paste this link: https://joyover.com/pause/february-21-2024
- Click here for previous month’s art offerings
P.S. Reality check: sometimes letting go just does NOT go as planned, am I right? 😬
