Learning To Let Go

This past year, grief became familiar. A friend I never wanted to meet. Miscarriage after miscarriage forced me into a reality I never wanted to know, and certainly never chose. Each loss has come with questions, fear, and a deep desire to understand what I could do differently - what I could control.

At first, my mindset was driven by fixing and managing outcomes. I wanted answers, timelines, reassurance. I wanted certainty. I wanted to believe that if I prayed the right way, did the right things, or stayed hopeful enough, I could somehow influence the ending.

But grief doesn’t work like that.

Over time, I realized how exhausting it was to live in constant anticipation—holding my breath, bracing for loss, or clinging to hope with white-knuckled determination. I was trying to carry something that was never meant to be carried by me.

What began to change wasn’t my circumstances. It was how I met them.

I slowly learned that peace didn’t come from understanding why or predicting what would happen next. Peace came from releasing control—sometimes daily, sometimes moment by moment—and bringing my fear honestly to God in prayer.

That shift didn’t remove the pain. It didn’t erase the grief or make it easier. But it grounded me. Instead of trying to manage outcomes I couldn’t control anyway, I began focusing on what I could: my posture, my trust, my willingness to surrender what I didn’t have answers for.

Faith stopped being about expecting a specific result and became about staying present. About praying not just for change, but for endurance. For peace that didn’t depend on the outcome. For hope not in a specific thing, but hope in a future that God has planned for me.

Mindset isn’t about convincing yourself that everything will be okay. Sometimes it’s simply choosing not to fight reality while you walk through it. It’s allowing grief to exist without letting it consume you. It’s trusting that God is still good, even when life feels deeply unfair.

That kind of mindset doesn’t come naturally. It’s learned through surrender, through repetition, and through choosing prayer over panic—again and again.

I still don’t control outcomes. I never did. But I no longer measure peace by whether things go the way I hope. I measure it by whether I’m anchored, honest, and willing to place what I cannot carry into God’s hands.

Grief changed me. But it also taught me something I might not have learned otherwise: that peace isn’t found in control. It’s found in trust.

As a new year approaches, I’m not stepping into it expecting certainty, answers, or an easier road.

What I am choosing is intention.

I’m choosing to walk forward without illusions - holding space for both hope and reality.

I’m choosing a mindset rooted in trust rather than control, prayer rather than panic, presence rather than prediction.

If the year brings joy, I will receive it with gratitude. If it brings challenge, I will meet it with the same surrender that carried me through grief. And if all I do is keep showing up, staying honest, and leaning into faith one day at a time, that will be enough.

I no longer need the New Year to promise me anything. I just need the reminder that peace is possible - regardless of what the year holds.