When God Says ‘Let Go’

…and your heart whispers ‘but where?’

I’ve been sitting in a deep season of letting go.

Not the tidy, graceful release we write about on Instagram.  Not the “clean break, tie a bow on it, post an inspirational quote and move on” kind.

The slow kind.

The kind you feel in your bones.

The kind you wrestle with in quiet rooms.

More like prying my fingers loose, one memory at a time.

More like choking on silence that used to be filled by voices I raised.

More like my heart learning to expand and break at the same time.

Empty nesting ... wow.

I’m not sure what I believed empty-nesting would feel like.

No one tells you it feels like simultaneously watching your life bloom, and watching a chapter you loved dissolve right into your hands. I thought it would feel like freedom.  A little sad, sure, but peaceful, spacious, beautiful.  And it does.

But it also feels like breathing through a lump in your throat every other morning. 

It feels like cheering for them while quietly grieving the version of my life where they still needed me to hold the world together for them.

Being a mom was my pulse. 

My rhythm. 

My identity stitched into four human hearts.

But now that I’m here, I know this: It’s about surrender. It’s about trust. It’s about opening your hands where you once held tight.  It's about learning to mother from the balcony instead of the front row. 

Love big. Pray hard. Release deeply.

It’s about releasing the daily assignment of Mom and learning how to love from a distance that still feels foreign some days.  And man, releasing your children to their own destination is brutal, and beautiful.

When Letting Go Is Love

I spent years being the steady place. The lunch-packer. The heart-holder. The one who showed up, every day, whether exhausted or ready or somewhere in the middle.

And suddenly … it shifts.

Not because the love changes, but because the season does.  My kids are grown now, each out building their lives, chasing callings, making decisions that stretch them.

Military.

Marriage.

Moves.

Babies.

New chapters I once prayed they’d be brave enough to chase, and I’m watching it unfold with a front-row seat and hands I have to remind myself not to grip tightly.

I am wildly proud.

Humbled.

Awestruck watching God unfold stories I once prayed over in the dark.

It is a breathtaking honor to witness your children become who God created them to be.

But there’s another side no one prepares you for: Letting go of who you were while they still lived under your roof.

I miss versions of me too.

The one who knew where everyone was, what they needed, and who needed extra love that day. The one who held the heartbeat of a busy house. The one who planned out meals, school and sports calendars. The one who stayed up folding uniforms and praying over future spouses she didn’t know yet.

That woman was exhausted sometimes, ok most of the time,  but she was anchored in a purpose. She had a role, a rhythm, a reason.  And now?

I stand in a different quiet. And it echoes.  It is a quiet grief to release the roles that shaped your identity for so long. Beautiful and hard.

But, I’ve been here before. I know this terrain.  Which tells me, if God is asking me to let go, it means He’s also whispering … “Let’s go.”

Stepping Into the Unknown (Again)

This season doesn’t feel like a dark valley. It feels like a cliff edge into the unknown.   Like I'm standing on a threshold, one hand still resting on the door of that life, another reaching for the door God hasn't fully opened yet.  A softer unknown, but unknown still.

The promises God has placed on my heart feel close … but I don’t yet see the map. And if I’m honest, I’d love the map.

Where are we going now, God?

What does this next chapter look like?

Is it finally “my time”?

What does 'my time' even mean?

And I hear Him saying, Let go.

But also … Let’s go.”

And I keep asking, “Okay… but where?”

And He keeps responding, “You don’t need to know, you just need to trust.”

Trust.

Even when it feels like free-fall.

Even when your life has already burned once and you don’t want to lose anything else you love.

Even when you’ve been the girl who obeyed, and surrendered, and rebuilt, and you’re like: Lord, I don’t have another collapse in me. So if we’re going, I need You to be in every breath of this. 

And He whispers right back:  I am.

Faith Isn’t Always Clarity, Sometimes It’s Memory

When your faith is being stretched, it’s almost never your first lesson. It’s the test that follows what He already taught you.

And He reminded me recently, gently, but clearly: I have walked into the unknown before.

I did it when I lost my husband.

When I sold our home, and moved, and then moved again.

When I closed a business we built together.

When I stepped into a new career and also into entrepreneurship again.

When I married off babies.

When I started a new relationship and opened my heart again to love, when I didn't know what I was doing, or who I even was.

None of that was clean or tidy, but it was courageous. It was messy courage and tear-stained obedience. Shaky steps that looks like faith only as I have looked backward, and ... He was faithful there.

So why am I white-knuckling this letting-go now?

Why does this season, this letting go and waiting for the next go feel so tender?

Maybe because releasing is always harder when what you're holding was once your whole world. 

Maybe because this time, the loss isn't so external, it's deeply internal.

It's identity. It's role. It's rhythm.

It's the loosening of everything you've held so tightly, stepping fully into the uncomfortable unknown, and releasing the familiar known.

Still, He whispers again: Let’s go.

But where, Father? You don’t need to know yet. You just need to trust.

Hold the Promise, Loosen the Plan

I don't have a roadmap right now, and honestly, that annoys me.  If you know me - at all - you know I like a plan. I like knowing where my feet are going, and who will be there when I arrive.

Here’s what I’m learning in real-time: We can hold on to the promise and still release the plan. We can trust the mission without controlling the method. Be married to the mission, not the method - that line wrecked me recently in church. Because I love a plan. I love clarity. I love knowing the timeline and the turns and the terrain. I want ALL the answers.

Don't we all?

But sometimes faith looks like:

• Stepping while your shoes are still untied

• Moving without the map

• Trusting the God of the outcome more than the comfort of the details

…and still that line, Be married to the mission, not the method.

It hit me right in the gut, because my mission hasn't changed.

Love God deeply.

Heal honestly.

Lead boldly.

Serve faithfully.

Walk women home to themselves and back to Jesus after life breaks them. 

But the method? The path? The timing?  That part requires open hands.

He will use me where I am, even before He moves me where I’m going. I don’t have to see it to believe it. I don’t need to understand it to obey it. And I don’t need to hold on in order to be held.

So here I am, hands open, eyes lifted, heart steadying itself again in the unknown.

Letting go, so I can go.

Releasing what was, so I can receive what’s next.

Leaning into the God who has never once failed to lead me home.

I don’t need to know the whole map. 

God knows I’d try to rewrite it anyway. 

I just need to know Him. And I do.

I know His character.

I know His voice.

I know His steady hand in every season that felt like it would swallow me whole.

I’m letting go, not because I want to, but because I trust the One who asked me to. And the girl who once whispered, “Lord, don’t take anything else from me” is now learning to say, Lord, take what’s not meant for my next, and give me courage to release it.

Letting go is hard.

But staying somewhere God has finished? That’s harder.

So here I am, loosening my fists, opening my heart, and letting God lead me into a chapter I haven’t read yet.  If He says “let go,”then there must be a “let’s go” on the other side.

And I’m going.

Shaky maybe.

Slow sometimes.

But I’m going with Him.

What If the Letting Go Is the Lift-Off?

Here’s what I keep learning with God, albeit usually the hard way: Sometimes we’re waiting on clarity, and sometimes God is waiting on our release.

Not because He’s trying to take from us.

Not because we didn’t do enough.

...but because what carried us through the last season can quietly choke the next one if we hold too tight.

I don’t think God pries our fingers open to punish us. I think He does it to free our hands for what’s coming … and maybe, just maybe, this slow loosening, this uncomfortable surrender, this agonizing in-between … isn’t a stall, but a set-up.

Maybe the quiet isn’t empty, it’s protective.

Maybe the slowness isn’t delay, it’s alignment.

Maybe the ache in your chest is just your soul stretching for the next thing God has already prepared.

What if the very thing you’re afraid to release is the thing God needs you to lay down so He can say, Okay daughter, now we go.

Because here's what I know from my own life: Every time I’ve unclenched my fists, God has filled them differently, and better, than I ever could have dreamed or imagined.

Not always immediately.

Not always neatly.

But faithfully.

Every single time.

Letting go isn’t losing. It’s making room. And this season? I don’t feel like I’m falling apart … I feel like I’m being positioned.

Friend, if God is whispering let go in your spirit, I promise you, there is always a let’s go on the other side.

Even if you don’t feel ready.

Even if you’re still shaking a little.

Note to self: Loosen your hands. Breathe. Trust Him.

You’re not losing your footing.

You’re learning how to fly again.

One surrendered step at a time.