Let Go

Love is all you need, so the poets have said. The poets may be right, though perhaps not in the sense they meant.

There was once a man who, in his own thoughts, loved a woman very much. They had dated for more than a year and a half, and had been friends throughout their university years. However, the man was plagued with doubts, unsure if this was truly the woman he wanted to grow old with. Beyond this, he was an ambitious man, and feared that he could not fulfill the duties of a husband and the rigors of a career. He was tormented by his decision, as he could not propose until he had decided what he valued most. This uncertainty was torture to the woman, who had known where her desires lay for years. She waited for him, and waited for him, until she thought she could wait no more. The two came within a breath of going their separate ways forever. Yet one day, as if the crowd began to sing, he realized that everything else he was hoping for was an illusion, an idol without substance. His heart let go of his assumptions and expectations about what his life must be, and he began to see what he had with new eyes. He bought her a diamond ring the very next day.

The insightful reader probably knows about this man, and may even remember that he again had to let go of his idols when he chose his graduate school. The introspective reader may even be able to identify with him. God is constantly making all of us choose between what is desirable and what is needful. Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same. We all have to learn that the glory we see for ourselves is not something to be grasped, but instead we have to let go of our vain ambition if we want to receive the true glory prepared for us.

And if giving up our idols for what is right is Love, then maybe love really is all you need after all.