When I was little I really loved living things in general and liked to keep them as pets. I had pet spiders, caterpillars, potato bugs, ants, and the list goes on. They were not your traditional pets because we were renting our home as I recall we were not allowed to have "real" pets like cats and dogs until after we decided to buy it. Anyway before I was able to have a cat, I liked to make a pet out of anything I could find before letting it go free. I really enjoyed going across the street since the neighbor had a lot of animals including chickens.
I decided I liked birds as well as the other creatures I collected so when the neighbor gave me an egg instead of eating it I decided to keep it to see what would come out. I put the egg in a sock to keep it warm and waited...and waited. Maybe it didn't occur to me at that age that having an egg didn't mean I would have a baby chicken as well because not all eggs are fertilized. Or maybe I was just keeping my hopes up regardless as to how long I waited but those hopes were eventually crushed-literally.
I don't recall exactly how it happened but one Sabbath/Friday night the egg broke and that may have been the first time I experienced the smell of a rotten egg. And it was a horrible. That was probably one of the worst circumstances if not the worst circumstance surrounding the welcoming of the Sabbath I have lived through so far.
But did I really learn my lesson? I think not. There are other things I have held onto hoping against all odds that the situation would be resolved. Such as broken relationships in more recent times and in the past maybe lost toys. I tried to hang onto hope that maybe that one thing I lost would be found, or maybe that man who offered to be my father figure would come back, and so on thinking if I tried harder or held on something long enough what I originally intended for the situation would come out of it-if I was just good enough. But it doesn't have to.
Instead I have found that as great a quality determination is, in order to have a healthy outlook on life it must be balanced with the understanding it is okay to let go. I used to feel that I couldn't let go of a situation until I proved I could "fix" it because it seemed wrong or immature to leave something you started unfinished. But moving on or letting go of something after you have done your best is not failure, it is maturity. The longer you hold onto an unfertilized hope the worse it stinks in the end. It is a tricky situation. You should not give up on things prematurely but you shouldn't be blind to reality either. So how can you have a strong spirit of determination against yielding to discouragement and be okay with letting go at the same time?
I would recommend you pray about it and ask God for wisdom concerning the specific circumstance you are facing and give it to God. Giving issues to the Lord doesn't mean you ignore it. It just means you can trust God to help you with it and even if nothing good seems to hatch out of the situation you can trust Him to help you with that too. God can even help you get past the smelly situation and clean up the mess in His own time. So when you have tried with God's help to put in the best efforts you could in light of the circumstances and there is nothing else you can do you can leave the situation with no regrets. I learned I should not to hold onto the old eggs of the past.
So are you holding onto any old eggs? Is there a lack of acceptance of some circumstance in your past or present? Is there pain, regret, bitterness, revenge, or even misguided hope/denial associated with it? If so I would recommend that you reevaluate your efforts and honestly think about the underlying reasons of why you are holding onto something with such determination to ensure your motives are healthy and to ask God for wisdom to know when to let go and when to hold on.
Picture originally found here:
