letting go

love is so fragile.

watching "white oleander" this morning, i was so moved by the story of a mother's manipulative love. it reminds me alot of what i'm reading in the book "boundaries", but more than that, it painted a hauntingly beautiful picture of what it means to love enough to let go. (and btw, alison lohman, the lead actress, is really really good. i was very impressed by her performance)

i guess all of us struggle with that. i know i do. to let go of things, people, hobbies that we love, because that, then, is true love. not merely possessing it and guarding our territories and rights.

parents have to let their children go, and vice versa. and new people come into our workplace, our ministries, our circle of friends, and we need to love enough to allow that and encourage it. something that i feel is really hard to do.

in a way, it kind of reminded me of what i felt yesterday about God giving us the freedom to choose. it's only because He loves us so much that we can choose to reject Him and the paths He has planned for us. to see it as Him marking out our paths such that we cannot choose - that would not be love.

it's weird but i coouldn't find any specific reference to support that statement that love means letting go. but i see it in Jesus' life, in how He so often refrained from telling his disciples what to do directly, but instead told them parables and led by example, and left it up to them to interpret and arrive at a response.

our obedience is then our way of showing our love. not the definition of love.
John 14:23

so i do believe that yes, we have that freedom to choose. how that falls in with the idea of His omniscience and His sovereignity, i have no idea, but i know that my God loves me enough to not hang me on a puppet string. that's enough for me - for now.