Letting Go Looks A Lot Like Reaching Forward

​Yesterday was the Georgia Jewel Trail Race. The 10th Anniversary. I wasn't there, but I have been there before.

I have been there before and had my life changed because of it.

The memories of the change pop up this weekend every year. Always the same message. Always right on time. And the message, it is hard to see what's next when you have a death grip on what was.

Back in 2018, my first trip to the Jewel, I attempted to run the 35-mile Georgia Jewel. I quit about halfway through the race. I'd spent six months playing up how important the race was to me, how prepared I was for it, and how God was going to help me move every mountain that tried to stop me.

And yet, the mountains were too mountainous that day. Either God or I showed up too small that day.

I don't think it was God....

Coming up short on race day ended up being the least of my worries - at least when it came to running. For months after, I beat myself up for not finishing.

I felt like I'd let myself down. I felt like I disappointed a lot of people who'd supported me. So, for the longest time, having a bad run in Georgia made it impossible for me to have a good run anywhere else.

But that is the story of my life, really. Letting the years behind me blind me to the possibility to be found in the years ahead of me. I have always been prone to letting yesterday have a stronger influence in my life than today and tomorrow.

For the longest time after that 2018 Georgia Jewel race, when I tried to run, no matter where I was trying to pull off that run, no matter how many weeks and months had passed since that race, I was still in Georgia.

Still haunted by Georgia.

I couldn't move forward with what was next in running because I had a death grip on thoughts of quitting that Georgia Jewel.

I think we all want to be ready to tackle what's next; we're truly at our best when we are. Sometimes we'll even stand in the doorway and shout across the prairie of what is next: "here I come." But often, as we shout bravely into tomorrow, we hold onto yesterday and all its fear and shame and guilt.

We really WANT to walk out that door to what's next. We SAY we will. But we just can't let go. We have a death grip on what was.

We have death grips on our childhoods.

We have death grips on failed relationships.

We have death grips on failed business opportunities.

We have death grips on habits or addictions.

You know, the natural rhythm of life is 'next'. The earth keeps revolving, the clock keeps spinning, the calendar keeps flipping forward, the next season keeps coming. Life is constantly marching toward next.

Maybe our most toxic fight in life is our fight against that natural rhythm.

The flow of life is downstream. Too many times I find myself clinging to a branch in the middle of that stream - the 'what was' branch - I find myself clinging with a death grip.

If you find yourself there today, picture it. Picture your death grip on that branch. Feel how tightly you are clinging to it. And then, THEN - picture yourself letting go of it. Feel the freedom as you flow downstream into what's next.

4 years ago yesterday, three years after I quit that first Georgia Jewel race, I went back and finished that race. Crossing that finish line felt like letting go of that branch.

As the image of that 2021 finish line pops up this morning, I find myself needing that finish line reminder as much as I've ever needed it. The reminder that pieces of yesterday are always going to show up wanting to steal any hope we might think about trying to find in tomorrow.

Life always seems to be trying to convince me that my life is finished. It feels like that has always been the loudest and most unshakable voice in my world.

Yet, I find a way to keep seeing finish lines up ahead.

I find a way to keep chasing them.

And so maybe life isn't as much about letting go of the branch as it is staying committed to reaching for the next one in front of you. To keep seeing and believing in that next one in front of you.

I will be forever grateful to the Georgia Jewel. Maybe more than any person or experience in life, that race taught me - keep reaching for that next branch.

And it's given me the chance to say to you: keep reaching for that next branch. And if you're struggling to see it, well maybe that's because you have a death grip on one behind you.