By Carolyn Shields

What if letting go is the greatest act of love? What if you chose heartache? What if that whole sacrificial love we found on the Cross was actually…real?

Every break up is different, but it doesn’t matter if it’s your first one or your 100th — it still hurts. A lot. It doesn’t matter how it happened: if there was a ring involved, if it happened out of nowhere, it still feels like hell. It doesn’t always matter how long of a relationship it was, it can still mess with the timeline in your head. And it doesn’t even matter who initiated it; whichever side of it you were on, you still have a choice to make.

And that choice will determine everything.

No one chooses to have their heart broken. We actually don’t choose most of the defining moments in our lives that shape and form us, such as who our parents are, what family we would be born into, our gender, the time that we would live. And we certainly don’t choose suffering. The only person who chose all of that was Christ. In a culture where we have an obsessive need for control and self-constructed identity, this speaks volumes: Some of the most important things in our lives are simply out of our control.

We would rather cling and clutch and claw to keep what is "ours."

That is terrifying for most of us, and the act of wild abandonment and letting go of the reigns causes even the wild child to hesitate. But here’s our little saving grace: Though the Lord may ask everything of us, it doesn’t necessarily mean He will take everything. That’s worth repeating. God might ask us to give Him everything, but it doesn’t mean He will take it. He simply wants an attitude of detachment, because that’s the greatest thing (and really the only thing) we have to offer, right? Our free will. That truth can be comforting for a while until He does take something...or someone.

So what then?

You say okay.

It’s easiest to say okay to the hard things by saying okay to the small ones. St. Therese had a very strict schedule as a Carmelite, making her time all the more precious; however, interruptions were frequent. Instead of becoming irritated or losing her peace, she would frequently state, “I choose to be interrupted.” Say okay to sitting in traffic, to waiting at the doctor’s office, to being woken up early by your child.

And when you find yourself saying okay to the hard ones, even though you may mutter them one hundred times throughout the day and they feel dead on your lips, Fr. Michael Gaitley, MIC, writes that the grace is still there. He writes in Consoling the Heart of Jesus, “Even if we pray them simply as an act of will without any emotion and in a way that seems to be ‘only words,’ we give great glory to God.”

Your loved one had a grueling decision to make, and through his own discernment he said okay to what the Lord was asking of him, which is to say, to let you go. And you need to respect that. Even if his discernment and his peace negates your own total lack of it, you can still respond with an open heart, starting with that one word: Okay, yes, Lord. I don’t understand but okay. This sucks, but okay. This really hurts and I’m barely hanging on, but okay.

(Click image to expand) Layout from the first issue of VIGIL

Not understanding the "why" is often harder than the actual suffering. (Though, convincingly, the answer to every "why" question in its summary can be found in Isaiah 43:4).

And even though nothing on the exterior changes, a dramatic shift happens within. Jacques Philippe writes, “Our freedom always has this marvelous power to make what is taken from us — by life, events, or other people — into something offered. Externally there is no visible difference, but internally everything is transfigured: fate into free choice; constraint into love, loss into fruitfulness. Human freedom is of absolutely unheard-of greatness.”

And after a while, this breakup may seem more like your own decision because of your daily commitment to what the Lord is asking of you. You begin to own your reality, whether that’s heartbreak or traffic. In other words, you are ordering your will.

When you do this, you are mirroring the Blessed Mother. Pray with the Wedding at Cana passage (John 2:1-12). We all know of Mary’s fiat at the Annunciation, but this moment in scripture is like her second fiat. For 30 years Jesus obeyed His mother, and it was as if He waited until she said, “Okay, begin your ministry” for Him to start revealing who He was...and it all happened at Cana. Mary was the one who approached Him. Jesus didn’t notice the wine and decided to change it on His own, privately, but Mary initiated it. She probably drew in a deep breath because she knew she was telling Him that it was okay if He took His first step to Calvary. By asking Him to do this, she was saying "Okay. I'm letting you go. Reveal your glory.”

But it gets better. Because Jesus even says, “Woman, how does your concern affect me?”

It was as if He was giving her an out. Mary could have breathed a massive sigh of relief, a “Whew, okay, never mind.” But she persisted. She was strong enough to let Him go, in this moment. She stood her ground when it was probably the last thing she wanted to do. And her response? She drew others into it and said, “Do whatever He tells you.”

Wow.

What more profound love exists than this? To lay down your life for one’s friends (John 15:13). To give up the future you had in mind, the love and joy that you tasted, the peace it all brought, your greatest gift...to let go is to love.

And there’s profound peace in this: if you are meant to be with your loved one, God’s Will will be done. He will come back if he is supposed to. So why not open yourself up to all the virtues that can be learned during this hard time? Why not go all in and respect his decision? Why not practice this wild abandonment?

When we give, He gives back a hundred fold. Those truths are massive and they are hard to swallow between those strangled sobs, so start small. Start in whispers. And let your love really show its redemptive and eternal power in ways it couldn’t when you were together by making it your greatest act of love yet.

It might take everything you have within you, but it can start with a single word: okay.