Learn to say “when”

Chip turned the rented four-wheel drive Chevy Blazer off the road and into an open field. The three of us, Chip, Andy, and myself, were in Florida on a spur-of-the-moment road trip. We had met Andy at the drop zone, where he’d been trying out for a skydiving team. Now the three of us were on our way to Orlando. It had rained the day before. We started to tear through the field, when the right wheels slipped into a ditch.

Chip rocked the truck, backward and forward. The right wheels sunk deeper. Andy hopped out of the truck, looked around, and then climbed back in. “We’re stuck,” he said.

“I’ve got my cell phone,” I said. “I’ll call for help. . . .”

Chip and Andy stared at me.

“You said you wanted an adventure,” Chip said. “Well, this is it!”

We all got out of the Blazer. The right wheels were entrenched in a ravine, and a large log was jammed into the underside of the vehicle. Andy had a plan. We’d each go try to find boards or wood that could be placed under the wheels. We returned twenty minutes later. The guys propped the wood under the tires. Chip got in the truck. The engine revved. The wheels spun. Mud sprayed. The truck didn’t move.

“I could call a tow truck,” I offered again.

About one-quarter mile away from the field was an intersection that promised, at least eventually, some passersby. We tromped to the intersection and waited. Before long, we flagged down an old Cadillac with a man and a young woman in it.

The man promised to return in a few minutes with his truck and his brother.

About fifteen minutes later, the two men and the woman appeared in a truck. They hooked a chain to the Blazer. Then they got in their truck and drove slowly away. They revved their engine. Mud sprayed. Then snap, the chain broke.

We looked at their truck. We looked at the stuck, muddy Blazer. We looked at the broken chain.

“Sorry,” the two men said.

“Thanks for trying,” we said. “Try calling a towing place,” the taller of the two men said. “They’ll come and get you out.”

Andy, Chip, and I got back into the stuck truck.

“Well,” I said. “Are you ready to call a tow truck now?”

The truck arrived. The professional tower had us out in fifteen minutes, and we were on our way to Orlando. We had been stuck for more than six hours. The entire time, we all knew what we had to do to get out: call the tow truck. For a variety of reasons, we didn’t want to do that until we got tired of being stuck.

Sometimes, getting stuck is the adventure at hand. We might not know what to do to move forward. Or we may be enjoying the drama of being stuck. We may be stuck in a grinding situation in a relationship. We may be at a plateau in our career. We may be stuck in our spiritual growth. We may have at one time liked and wanted to be where we’ve found ourselves, but now it’s time to move on.

Learning to say when—whether it’s when we want something more, or something else, or when we’ve had enough— is an important part of using in the language of letting go.

God, help me remember that I have the power to say when.

From the book: More Language of Letting Go

The post Learn to say “when” appeared first on Melody Beattie.