Learning to Let Go

Learning to Let Go

Publication: The Lookout

Date: September 21, 1997

Column: From the Editor's Desk

Category: Family, Parenting, Freedom

All right, I admit it. Call me corny and old-fashioned if you want, but I'm an unapologetic fan of the old Andy Griffith Show. I cheered when *TV Guide *(June 28-July 4, 1997) included in its "100 Greatest Episodes of All Time" the show from September 30, 1963, known as "Opie the Birdman."

My wife and I never had viewed that episode until this year, when we happened to watch it along with one of our daughters. Filmed in black and white, the show colorfully portrayed the endearing relationship between Sheriff Andy Taylor and his son Opie.

After Opie (played by a young Ron Howard) accidentally killed a mother bird with his slingshot, he took care of the three young birds that remained in the nest. Fondly, he named them, fed them with tweezers, and provided them a cage for protection from the neighbor's cat.

Eventually, though, the birds grew too big for the cage. "You need to turn them loose," Andy said. "Let them be on their own and be free, like they were intended to be." Opie wondered, "But what if they can't fly away? What if I didn't do all the right things?"

Hesitantly, Opie opened the cage and released the birds one by one. Then as each bird took flight, he called, "He made it, Pa! He's going to be O.K. Guess I did a good job!"

The show ended with one more tender father-son exchange. Glancing down, Opie murmured, "The cage sure looks awful empty, don't it, Pa?"

"Yes, son, it does," Andy replied thoughtfully. "But don't the trees seem nice and full?"

All of that created a strange combination of emotions in my family room. As the Andy Griffith Show theme song whistled cheerfully from the TV, my wife and I sat on the couch with tears welling up in our eyes, and our puzzled-looking 15-year-old daughter Mindy quickly changed the channels!

Why did that old show touch us so? Skillful acting? A thoughtfully written script? Was it because our own family is entering the "empty nest" stage? (We took our son to college last month.) All of the above—and more.

What touched me most was the realization that love often means letting go.

Ironic, isn't it? On the one hand, love makes us want to cling, to hold on to the person or object we care deeply about. Yet the essence of love is giving, and we cannot give away what we clutch too tightly in our hands.

Because he loves us, Jesus calls us to let go of sin and self, and to release our grip on anything we hold too tightly—even the people we love.

Although that's true, it didn't reduce the lump in my throat as my wife and I said goodbye to our son and drove away from the campus last month. It doesn't keep me from missing the way Matt and I tossed the football in the backyard on cool autumn evenings. It doesn't prevent the occasional question, Did I do enough, pray enough, listen enough, advise enough, impart enough wisdom? As Opie asked, "What if I didn't do all the right things?"

But amid the empty nest's odd mixture of relief mingled with emptiness, and confidence combined with concern, our heavenly Father offers calm reassurance.

God is writing a good-news story on the pages of our lives. He will be with us as we turn the page and begin the next chapter.