They are three simple stones.  Nothing unusual or extravagant.  But on a day in Wisconsin, while attending a Women’s retreat, they become incredibly significant to me.  You see, the speaker had provided several of them and encouraged those listening to take as many as we believed we needed.  We were to then name them with those things that we needed to let go of or forgive ourselves for.  Then we were to spend some time in quiet meditation or prayer as we felt led and then get rid of the stones as a symbol of letting that “thing” go.

What I named them is not for public knowledge.  Yet.  It might be someday.  It might not.  For now, this picture sits in critical places on pieces of technology I use regularly so I see it often.  And when I do, I remember those names.  Then I remember the sound of each stone hitting the water as I physically let them all go.  Sometimes I intentionally go after the picture because I keep trying to pick back up the junk I released.  It’s familiar.  It’s known.  It might not have been healthy, it might have made me feel beaten down, but I knew how to do life with that “junk”.  This is different.  The “after” is new and not always easy.

But I’m not picking any of it up again.  While the unknown can be frightening, there have been glimpses of a life that will be richer than I ever imagined.  Simply because I let go of emotional and spiritual burdens that I was NEVER meant to carry in the first place.