20. A Letter to Letting Go

Loving C has been the greatest honor of my life.

Truly.

It’s something I wouldn’t trade, even though it’s brought me to my knees more times than I can count. Even though it’s ending, or maybe already ended, with my arms still reaching out for something that won’t reach back.

I’ve wrestled with this love. Fought against it. Prayed for it to leave me. Prayed for it to stay. I’ve begged God to take it away if it wasn’t meant to be, and then moments later, I’ve begged Him to bring C back to me. To let him choose me. To let me be his again.

Because I still love him.
God, I still love him.

I think about reaching out.
I think about texting.
I think about what it would be like if he walked back into my life not just as a friend, but as my person again. The one I got to plan birthdays for. The one I got to show up for. The one I got to cheer on, support, love… freely, and fully.

But we aren’t together anymore.

And it hurts to say that out loud. It hurts in the kind of way that sits deep in your chest and doesn’t leave, not even when you sleep.

He’s not mine anymore. And yet my heart hasn’t caught up to that truth. It still whispers his name in prayer. It still pictures a future that’s already been rewritten.

I think about all the things C is called to — the music, the writing, the ministry. I wanted so badly to partner with him in those things. To stand beside him. To believe with him. To be a part of the becoming. But that’s not my role anymore.

And so I find myself standing here — open-palmed, tear-streaked — and I realize: Because I love him… I have to let him go.

I don’t want to be the storm cloud in his sky. I don’t want to be what holds him back from becoming everything he’s meant to be. I want him to flourish. To grow. To soar. And if that means stepping back… If that means letting go, even when my whole being wants to cling…

Then that’s what I will do.

Not because it’s easy. Not because I’ve stopped loving him. But precisely because I haven’t.

Because real love doesn’t demand its own way. Real love releases. Real love trusts God with the outcome. Even when it breaks your heart.

So I’m letting go. Not because I want to. But because I love him so.

Enjoy this poem:
Because I Love You So

Loving you has been the greatest honor
not light, not fleeting,
but a fire I’ve tended
through the long wrestle with what love is,
what it asks,
what it costs.

I have loved you
even knowing
you may never love me.
Still, I loved.
Still, I hoped.
Still, I reached for you in the dark
when your light felt just out of reach.

I sit with this love,
bare in its truth
how we are no longer we,
how my heart still longs
to pull you close,
to have you choose me,
to be yours,
and you, mine.

I want to reach out,
not as a friend
but as something more
what we once dreamed,
what I still hold.

Because I love you,
I think of your music,
your words,
your calling
the life you’re carving with trembling hands.
I longed to be beside you in it all,
to walk with you in purpose,
to build, to serve, to believe together.

But that is no longer my role.

And so,
because I love you,
I must let you go.

Not in anger,
not in bitterness,
but in reverence.
Because love, real love,
does not cling
when release is the holier thing.

I will not be the storm cloud in your sky.
I will not be what holds you back
from becoming all you are called to be.

And so
because I love you,
I open my hands.
I watch you go.

And my heart breaks
beneath the weight
of its own beauty.

Because you are no longer mine.
Because I love you so.

- Cheesecake