Not Mine To Hold: Lots, Portions & The Gift of Letting Go

Would you rather listen? Here’s that link to the Keep On With Abigail Wallace podcast.

I’m not good at letting go. Sometimes I hold on to dreams that aren’t God’s plan for me. For better and for worse, I am the bee—the busy bee that won’t rest until it extracts sweet nectar from every flower. I look for the good.

But I am also the frantically, futilely buzzing bee,*

That booms against the window-pane for hours

Thinking that the way to reach the laden flowers.

Yes, for better and worse, I am that bee. I hold on to dreams that aren’t God’s plan for me.

I’m not good at letting go.

Triggers and Portions

This season a lot triggers—or better, tries —me. First-day photos, college dorms, and smiley, happy families on vacay try my heart as more of my sweet, long-term mama dreams are denied.

These good things are not my portion.

Portion? What even is a “portion”?

In the Bible, the term was sometimes translated “inheritance,” as in the allotment of land God gave to Israel when they entered the Promised Land. All the tribes received a physical space, land to call their own—all except one.

In Deuteronomy 10:9, we read about the priestly tribe whose portion was not the land, but the LORD. “Therefore Levi has no portion or inheritance with his brothers. The Lord is his inheritance, as the Lord your God said to him.”

The Bible has a lot to say about the Lord who is our portion.

• The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot. Psalm 16:5
• You are my portion, Lord; I have promised to obey your words. Psalm 119:57
• I cry to you, Lord; I say, “You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living.” Psalm 142:5
• My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Psalm 73:26
• “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” Lamentations 3:24

I count it joy that the LORD—not idyllic family, award-winning kids, or thriving ministry— is my portion. My chosen portion. I believe what Elisabeth Elliot said is true, that “what God does to me, he does for me.”

Which means I must stop buzzing at the window and choose to hope in him to receive the lot for me. If the LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.

How to Reframe Pain Points to Trigger Your Joy

Can your faith reframe your trials as joy? Do you want to learn to use your pain points—even shiny posts about what is not your lot—to prompt you to take joy in what is your assigned portion? I do.

I want to learn to count loss as gain. We do feel loss, and can grieve what is not. But then we do the 90-second reset, and reframe the pain.

By grace and with effort, we can use the triggers to push us to the One who is wisely working all things for good (Ephesians 1:11, Romans 8:28) and who will perfect that which concerns me (Psalm 138:8). We can choose to renew our minds with truth.

Let’s use our “triggers” not to set-off discontent with our lot, but to push us to the perfect portion we’ve got?

Self-Inflicted Pain

I used to think that letting go was weak and that grasping dreams was strong.

To be sure, sometimes clinging is strong—like when Abraham “hoped against hope” that he and Sarah would bear a promised child. But Abraham had a sure and personal promise from God. These sort of dreams we must never release.

But I’m talking about my personal dreams, the ones that become nightmares as they crumble.

Mary Lowman explored the “the gift of letting go” in her podcast this month. She says letting go of these five things—our past, the small stuff, the desire for revenge or to have control, and, yes, our dreams—is both freeing and peace-giving.

I agree.

But there’s one more thing that keeps looping through my head. It was when I heard that buzzing bee. Lowman said, “When I let go of a dream, I realized how much of my pain was self-inflicted.”

Which reminds me of what Jonah prayed in the fish’s belly, “Those who cling to worthless idols [including mama dreams] forfeit the grace that could be theirs.”

This month I feel that. And I don’t want to cling to a “worthless” dream and forfeit God’s grace.

The Strength Of Letting Go

Now I see strength of character revealed in those who let go of dreams. They don’t cling.

These friends have freedom and peace. They refuse to allow a dream hold their joy captive. They refuse to let “the givens” and “the not givens” steal their peace. These people live like the Lord is their portion—not will be their portion, but is, right now, today.

Whether or not a husband, wife, or children, health, wealth, or house, graduation or award are given, these meek people have chosen their lot and in it, they find peace.

These strong saints know how to let go.

Not Mine To Hold

Elizabeth Elliott wrote,

I know of no greater simplifier for all of life. Whatever happens is assigned. Does the intellect balk at that? Can we say that there are things which happened to us which do not belong to our lovingly assigned portion? Are some things then, out of the control of the Almighty?

Keep A Quiet Heart

Heaven is not here, it’s there. If all my dreams were fulfilled this side of heaven, I might settle for this world rather than the next. I forfeit God’s grace if I keep buzzing at the windowpane, if I don’t let go of my dreams.

I don’t hold my lot. The Lord holds my lot. He is my portion. In him, not in my accomplishment or my sons’ success, is my portion.

The portion he gives is best. So by grace, tonight I will let go, trust God, and rest.

The Bee I Shall Be

I write a lot about bees—bees elegantly working and critically stinging, futilely buzzing and unfairly stinging. But today it was about bees who stop buzzing.

So can you guess what happened after this last, wing-weary bee video I filmed in my garage?

I gently took the bee and shook him out, to his lot, which happens to be a yard full of thousands of blooming daisies.

* * * * *

I was the triggered, buzzing bee and, so help me God, I shall be the free, quiet bee.

Because left to my own will—clinging to my dreams, ignoring my portion, and outside my lot—I would have died upon the windowsill.

For thus said the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel,

“In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.”

Isaiah 30:15

*‘If we could speak to her,’ my doctor said,

‘And tell her, “Not that way! All, all in vain

You weary out wings and bruise your head,”

Might she not answer, buzzing at the pane,

“Let queens and mystics and religious bees

Talk of such inconceivables as glass;

the blunt lay worker flies at what she sees,

Look there – ahead, ahead – the flowers, the grass!

”We catch her in a handkerchief (who knows

What rage she feels, what terror, what despair?)

And shake her out – and gaily out she goes

Where quivering flowers and thick in summer air,

To drink their hearts. But left to her own will

She would have died upon the window-sill.

– C.S. Lewis, Poems