Growing Means Letting Go.

Here’s something I’ve been pondering lately -

Forgiveness is worth it, for no other reason than you just don’t want to be a victim anymore. It’s worth it for the simple reason that it enables you be free and move on with your life.

I know, that was a truth bomb, right? And it may even hurt to hear it… Well friend, can I tell you a story that seems kind of random for the moment we’re in now but will make sense in a little while?

When I was 12 years old, I had a hermit crab that my parents got me after I’d relentlessly begged them for a puppy. Yeah, I know… haha. I get it though, puppies are destructive and take a lot of work - they thought a hermit crab would shut me up and be easier on them. But to the sensitive, pink-loving, girly-girl I was then, I found my new pet butt ugly. It scared me if I looked at it for too long. I had wanted something cute to cuddle and play with, not a fat spider with claws. Over time I learned to like it, and even developed a sweet little bond with the creepy thing. My mom took me shopping for colorful shells to decorate its tank with and I learned how to take care of it. For almost a year, I kept my ugly/cute hermit crab baby on a strict schedule and fed him twice a day at the same time no matter what. Anyways, when summer came, I spent a few weeks in Florida with my aunt and made my mom promise to take care of it, explaining its very special schedule to her (I think I even wrote it down). Three weeks later, I returned to find my hermit crab huddled pitifully, dried out in a corner of its little tank. Let me tell you, I was devastated. I literally fell to my knees, looked up at my bedroom ceiling and screamed towards God “WHY?” (I was watching a lot of soap operas around this time as you can probably tell. Days Of Our Lives was my favorite - haha!)

We’d had and lost family pets in the past before, but this was the first one that was mine, and I’d grown to love it. My mom profusely apologized, explaining she mostly remembered to feed it every day. I gathered my little brother and some friends in the neighborhood for a funeral. We dug a hole, I reached into the tank I’d brought down into the yard to retrieve my fallen friend and placed him in his grave. We all stared down, the mood somber. My little brother (who didn’t need much of an excuse to play in the dirt) began spooning dirt with his hands over the hermit crab as he lay in his little grave. Then, suddenly, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. It moved. I kept staring and it moved again. My brother paused with a fist full of dirt in each hand, frozen with shock. We all stood watching, gasping in awe, as my crab began trying to crawl out of the hole. Someone screamed, “IT’S ALIVE!!” Horrified, I thought, “WHAT? ZOMBIES ARE REAL???” All of us kids took off running with our hands above our heads, about 6 in total, scrambling to escape the zombie hermit crab! It was truly something to see! We would later learn from a friend in the neighborhood who had owned hermit crabs that they go through a molting process where they leave their old shell, shed their outer exoskeleton, and then move into a new larger shell. However, because I didn’t know about this, I had purchased shells (purely for decoration) that were all about the same size, and the little thing didn’t have a bigger shell available when it outgrew its old one. Out of options, it just huddled in the corner and refused to move. The story ends well, don’t worry! I got a larger shell with cute pink flowers on it, which it happily claimed soon after, and the little crab went on the live a healthy (and stylish) life. The experience, aside from being hilarious to me now, taught me that everything in life has phases of growth. And, you have to let go of the old to make room for the new.

In retrospect, my hermit crab also taught me that growth can be dramatic and painful, sometimes even appearing as a death, but it’s not - it’s a whole new beginning. There have been seasons in my life when I have felt God leading me to forgive things that hurt so badly it changed me as a person. As I’m typing this now, my mind keeps bringing me back to the moment I saw my hermit crab huddled in the corner, shivering and exposed. I think, “that’s how I must have looked after this person hurt me… so exposed, and hurt, and alone.” Friend, I know what it feels like to have someone you love betray you and even abuse you. It changes you, it truly does. What God has taught me is that some situations hurt so badly, you’ll never be the same afterwards - but we don’t have to be lessened. It took me years to learn that “never being the same” doesn’t have to be a negative thing. Even the deepest of heartbreaks and loss can catapult us into transformations we never would have imagined could be possible.

Now that I think about it, my crab was brave. He decided the time had come to ditch his old shell that no longer fit him, and he committed! Even when he didn’t find a new one waiting for him (sorry again, little guy), he did not go back. No, he waited. I would love to say I’m that determined to shed the things that are heavy, or ill-fitting, unhealthy, or no longer serve me, but I’m working on it. Can you imagine how much easier our lives could be if we were willing to let go of the toxic things simply because God says that’s what is best? And how much easier it would be to trust God’s Word when it comes to surrendering these heavy things, laying down the “old shell” even if we don’t see a better one waiting for us…yet.

“Stop dwelling on the past. Don’t even remember these former things. I am doing something brand new, something unheard of. Even now it sprouts and grows and matures. Don’t you perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and open up flowing streams in the desert.”

‭‭- Isaiah‬ ‭43‬:‭18‬-‭19‬ ‭TPT‬‬

So, what does this mean? It means that God wants us to look forward because He has better things (roomier shells) ahead for us.

The same sentiment is continued in Hebrews, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses (people trusted God and now cheer us on from Heaven) [who by faith have testified to the truth of God’s absolute faithfulness], stripping off every unnecessary weight and the sin which so easily and cleverly entangles us, let us run with endurance and active persistence the race that is set before us… (Hebrews 12:1 AMP)”

God requires every living thing to die in some way and later on, be reborn. Trees shed their leaves each fall and spend the winters exposed and bare. Flowers literally wilt, losing their petals, but bloom anew every spring. As we know now, hermit crabs molt their shells, exposing their soft and vulnerable skin that’s been hidden away before they can put on a new one. Birds lose their nests in the north and have to make a new one in the south. Baby cheetahs are abandoned by their mother’s while still very young, and learn to take care of themselves from the time they are babies; as a result of this, cheetahs are known to be the independent loners of the animal kingdoms. I don’t know about you, but I can relate to cheetahs. I’ve had to take care of myself since I was tiny; the thing I love about cheetahs is that how unburdened they are. Have you seen them run? Nothing holds them back. I ask God to help me to be like that - bold, fast, and free, focused on my purpose even if I find myself running alone.

One last fact (and it’s one of the coolest I’ve learned): did you know that caterpillars don’t simply crawl into a chrysalis and grow wings? No, it’s far more complex than that. Caterpillars almost completely dissolve, and inside the secrecy of their chrysalis, they cease to be a caterpillar at all. They become goo and then slowly become a new creation. For this reason, butterflies are often seen as a symbol of new life and rebirth. Can you imagine if a caterpillar ever said, “you know what, dissolving hurts and I don’t want to do it”. They would never get their wings. They would never know what it means to fly. They would spend their entire lives on the ground, slowly inching their way along when they could be soaring.

“Now, if anyone is enfolded into Christ, he has become an entirely new person. All that is related to the old order has vanished. Behold, everything is fresh and new.”

‭‭- 2 Corinthians‬ ‭5‬:‭17‬ ‭TPT‬‬

God requires us to go through a rebirth process as well. I believe that He urges us to go through this process more than once in a lifetime, each one being a part of his wonderful and well thought out plans for our lives. Is every rebirth as intricate and monumental as what happens to the caterpillar? Not always. But every rebirth requires us to go through pain, or at least discomfort - releasing anger, grudges, fear, and trauma, and anything else that is heavy and no longer serves us - to gain a life more elevated and healthy than the one we previously had.

“There is an occasion for everything, and a time for every activity under heaven: a time to give birth and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to uproot; a time to kill and a time to heal; a time to tear down and a time to build…”

‭‭- Ecclesiastes‬ ‭3‬:‭1‬-‭3‬ ‭CSB‬‬

Dear friend, our biggest hindrance is holding onto things that no longer serve us. Nature naturally releases this year’s bounty so it can bloom again next year. We don’t. Honestly, releasing is very unnatural for us, because God gave us free will, so letting go is truly an act of the will. It takes grit and inner strength and faith to let go. Lovely friend, the worst thing you can do is cling to something God is trying to remove from your life. Release it, set it free, so you can be free.

I want to end this with a quote by Corrie ten Boom, someone I’ve long admired. If you don’t know, Corrie and her family were Dutch clock makers in 1940’s Holland who were caught hiding Jewish people in their home. Attempting to save lives ended up costing Corrie her entire immediate family. They were all sent to concentration camps and she alone survived. I do want to add that years after the war ended, Corrie was speaking about her experience to a crowd and afterwards, a nazi prison guard who had beaten her dying sister Betsy in the concentration camp came up to her and apologized. Though it hurt her, and she had a lot of internal turmoil seeing his face again, she took his hand in hers and forgave him.

“I have learned to hold all things loosely, so God will not have to pry them out of my hands.” - Corrie ten Boom

Women like Corrie ten Boom, Sojourner Truth, Christine Caine, Maya Angelou and so many others have shown me the beauty in surrendering your life to the Lord and allowing Him to use your greatest pain to transform you, and sometimes even the world around you. In the case of both Corrie and Sojourner, the Lord called them to minister to the very people who had hurt them. Corrie made a safe house after the war for Jewish people to heal and German people to rest and reverse the brainwashing of the third reich. Sojourner (born Isabella Baumfree in American chattel slavery) upon finally gaining her freedom, changed her name to Sojourner and literally sojourned with God throughout the northern part of the US, preaching the true Gospel of God’s love to some white people of her time who had been taught through racist laws, beliefs, and pseudo-science to think less of her. Because Sojourner and Corrie allowed God to use their pain to deepen their love for people, their experiences didn’t make them bitter, it made them better.

Maya Angelou once said, “I can be changed by what happens to me, but I refuse to be reduced by it.”

Dear friend, if you are going through a season of change, challenge, suffering, or loss, please take comfort in knowing you are not the only one. God is not singling you out, He isn’t picking on you - He is taking you through a process that will lead you somewhere good in the end. While you’re in your chrysalis, stop fighting. Let go and trust that your wings will come. In the meantime, become a student of God’s Word, dive in deep and cling to His promises and let go of any anger. Also, become a student of history. Study the stories of people who trusted God even though war, famine, enslavement, and genocide raged around them. Stories of God’s faithfulness can be found in scripture as well as memoirs and history books. Your Heavenly Father’s track record is long, spanning back millennia right up to now. He will not fail you, lovely friend, He won’t. Be willing to let go, and even dissolve if necessary (ceasing to be the person you are now) to rise up healed, transformed, and renewed.

Take a few moments to sit with the beautiful truth God has written for you in his word:

“God, the searcher of the heart, knows fully our longings, yet he also understands the desires of the Spirit, because the Holy Spirit passionately pleads before God for us, his holy ones, in perfect harmony with God’s plan and our destiny. So we are convinced that every detail of our lives is continually woven together for good, for we are his lovers who have been called to fulfill his designed purpose. (Romans‬ ‭8‬:‭27‬-‭28‬ ‭TPT‬‬)”

Everything that happens in your life has a purpose.

Don’t get lost in your pain, dear sister, trust the plan.

Love you,

-Kelly