THERE REALLY is no trick to making a Graceful Exit. It is all about moving on rather than moving out. The things that happened in our past that we cannot repair we must let go of. In order to make a graceful exit, it is important that you understand what must take place. It is about God's omnipotent grace and antidote forgiveness. You must forgive if you are to develop to your full potential. The forgiveness will heal and free you to break up the fallow ground that has kept you lingering in the past. It will also heal the brokenness of relationships, whether intimate or friendships. This book will discuss and help you recognize those crippling thoughts and behaviors that can hinder you from making your exit.

How to Make a Graceful Exit

Letting Go of the PastBy Janice M. Green

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2009 Pastor Janice M. Green
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4389-9439-0

Contents

Preface...................................................................ixIntroduction Been there, done that: Social Work!.........................xiiiChapter One What is the Graceful Exit?...................................1Chapter Two Trapped by Truth: My Own Story...............................11Chapter Three Letting Go.................................................23Chapter Four Forward March! Move on with Forgiveness.....................39Chapter Five Green Light, I'm Finally Moving.............................49Chapter Six A Friend Indeed..............................................61Chapter Seven My New Place...............................................69Chapter Eight Making Sense in Your Season................................77Chapter Nine It's Never Too Late.........................................87Epilogue..................................................................97Notes.....................................................................99

Chapter One

What is the Graceful Exit?

"So I have come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, flowing with milk and honey, Exodus 3:8

When an oyster is irritated it makes a pearl. However, a great deal of time must pass in order for the oyster to produce the pearl. Gold is refined by fire; diamonds are mined, crushed, cut and then shaped. What is the correlation of the above statements? It is time. Time has taken place and the end product is the result of what happened prior to its existence that passed. Many people will experience such molding and shaping in comparison throughout life. This will occur when a person has decided to make a graceful exit to their future. To get to your future and live in contentment you must learn how to let go of the past that is irreparable.

Let's look at the word "past". A simple definition I chose from the Webster's New World College Dictionary is "whatever was has passed or gone by. It is over."

I am an admirer of John C. Maxwell and I have read a number of his books. While reading one of his books I came across a quote he used by a newspaper columnist, Ellen Goodman. I found this quote to be very interesting which says, "There's a trick to the Graceful Exit. It begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage, a relationship is over-and to let it go. It means leaving what's over without denying its validity or its past importance to our lives. It involves a sense of future, a belief that every exit line is an entry that we are moving on, rather than out."

As I begin to look closely at this quote I chose to focus on letting go of irreparable relationships. Many people have not been able to move pass the pain and hurt they encountered in a relationship that was either intimate or a friendship that was damaged. This caused me to examine my own past experience with a damaged relationship and the pain and hurt I suffered. I began to question myself, had I really made a graceful exit or was I denying my true feelings? I want you to know that through my experience I discovered there really is no trick to the Graceful Exit. The Graceful Exit has a great deal to do with a word call forgiveness. It is forgiveness that will help a person to let go of the past that is irreparable. The key is to recognize when it is time to let go. You are allowed to validate the things that went wrong and what you experienced personally. (Later I will devote to an entire chapter on forgiveness.) However, I want you to understand what the Graceful Exit involves. Forgiveness in biblical terminology is what God gave to all mankind. It is God's grace that He has `forgotten forever' what our lives were like before we came to Him. God will no longer hold us accountable for the things we did in our past that was against Him. When an individual decides to no longer live contrary to God's word they will repent and God will cast all their past into the sea of forgetfulness. You must understand that people are incapable of this type of forgiveness without the love of God in them.

When you are able to forgive at this level you are saying you will no longer hold a wrongful act against the other person. It is important that you stay before God's presence seeking guidance and love for the other person. Who can give us a better illustration than Paul? Philippians 3:13-14 "Brethren, I count not myself to apprehended; but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."

I chose to write on this topic placing emphasis on relationships in hopes I will be able to encourage people to let go, but with God's love. To truly make the Graceful Exit you will go through a mental fire; your flesh will be crushed, you will be wounded, bruised and possibly experience self-destructive behavior along the way. Your reliance on God is the key to surviving with self intact. It is not the outside forces that we struggle with. Many times the most severe hurts and wounds are done by those closest to us, and this is why it is so difficult to let go and move on. The scripture gives proof of this in Zechariah 13:6 "And one will say to him, What are these wounds between your arm? Then he will say, those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends."

It is my goal to reach people who are currently experiencing difficulty in letting go of a bad past. I want to encourage them to use the antidote, forgiveness, so that they can begin to recover. Furthermore, I want people to understand that they are responsible for overcoming and healing their own injuries. Do not let the past control your future. You must realize that your move forward does not demote you or make you a second-class citizen. It means that you have taken responsibility for your own emotions and you will not allow them to imprison you any longer with guilt, shame and the hurtful experience. Your exit line, at whatever stage in your life you choose, you grant yourself the access and in doing so you free yourself to move. This can be a physical move, but I am speaking here of an emotional state of mind. You leave behind feelings from the past that you know for certain cannot be repaired so you move on.

The Graceful Exit will help you to successfully move to your future. It will not allow you to hold onto the wrongful doings of others. At this exit you will be congratulated for getting rid of the crippling and negative emotions that are roadblocks. Each exit line that you make will help you to overcome the memories of the past suffering and pain which can keep popping up at different stages in your life. This would be like having your personal "Jack-in the-box", but when you wind it up "Jack" doesn't pop out only your rehearsed ill feelings and hurts.

The vision to recognize will help you stay free of a web of unresolved thoughts. You will accept the reality that this stage in your life has ended. No longer will you be paralyzed by these thoughts; you free yourself to discover what your full potential and purpose in life can be. You will look forward to bright beginnings, new surroundings, ideas, people and places. Your Graceful Exit...