To live with open hands

This school year -- and probably my whole life -- has been all about learning how to live with open hands.

It's a way of living that is a moment-by-moment choice to accept whatever comes and offer it back to God. It means letting things go and it means that after I've done all I can, letting things be what they are, as they are, and trusting that God has everything.

When I stop thinking that everything -- and everyone -- has to be the way I want it to be, that my life has to be a certain way or that I "deserve" certain things, life opens up. I can invite Jesus completely into my fears, worries and anxieties, asking him to come into them, have them and transform them, replace them with faith and trust in a God who is only good.

When I live with open hands, I am given the gift of peace, as I realize and trust that God is embracing me and would never do anything to hurt me, that everything can be used to love others, for his glory. When I live with open hands, I can enjoy more fully the joys of life because I regard them truly as precious, fleeting gifts. Nothing is mine to hold onto; Everything is God's. When I hold it all with open hands, everything and everyone that comes into my life, even time itself, becomes a gift.

The posture of open hands is not a defensive position, but an inviting, welcoming position. In it, we aren't trying to push anything away, but accept all -- what we perceive as the "good" and "bad" -- and hold it with open palms, letting it rest in our hands for an indefinite amount of time. We offer it back to God to do with what he will, to teach and love us through, letting him move us to action if that is part of it, or be still if it's not. As we hold our lives in offering, Jesus is here with us.

One of my favorite lines from the Serenity Prayer says, "Taking, as he did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; trusting that he will make all things right if I surrender to his will ..." I especially love the first part of this line because it acknowledges the reality that everything isn't perfect, but that we can accept brokenness and then bring God's love into it. We are privileged to be able to live in a broken world, to be love that accepts and heals in it.

I want to be open, a vessel for God and his love to flow into and out of. Living with open hands allows me to let the things that hold me back from God, others and myself flow from me, freeing me to receive the gifts God has for me.

All of life is learning to accept and let go, receive and give, learning and relearning that God and his love and grace are truly more than enough.

Mia Pohlman is a Perryville, Mo., native studying at Truman State University. She loves performing, God and the color purple -- not necessarily in that order.