by Danny Gokey
Letting go didn’t mean I would somehow forget about Sophia. I could not and would not ever do that. But it did allow me to begin to heal inside and see life differently.
I remember sitting on my bed with tears running down my face and saying to God and myself, I refuse to let this be the last of me. I refuse to let this define me and poison my future. This will not defeat me. I would picture myself pounding my hands open and letting go. I had to do this many times throughout the months after Sophia’s death, but it finally set me free. The bitterness began to drain from my heart, and happiness and joy took its place. I started seeing life in a new way. The grass was greener and the sky was bluer.
As I look back on this dark time, it amazes me how much my poisoned heart changed my ability to see things and how horribly I viewed things. I’m so thankful for this realization. It saved me and set me free.
Ready for Freedom
I can tell you that nothing magical happened immediately. But over time, I have been able to enjoy life more and more. I’m grabbing hold of new opportunities that would have otherwise been lost. I’m not buried in my bed under my sheets at home, angry at the world and God. Instead, I began to move through the stages of healing because my heart was no longer bound by resentment. I began to wonder if Sophia’s life and heart might be able to touch countless others.
When I forced myself to let go, that is when I was able to move forward. Your past and future don’t mix. It’s either one or the other. If you hold on to your past, your future will only be revisiting that past over and over again. I know it seems hard, and it’s not the answer you might want to hear, but take it from someone who has been there.
My life has improved one thousand times over since letting go of my depression. So many people and families are torn apart because of their unwillingness to let go — because someone doesn’t want to forgive someone else and move on. Many people tend to think that terrible situations and terrible relationships will somehow fix themselves. They think that emotions like anger and refusing to forgive will bring justice. They won’t.
I’ve made a choice to be free. Freedom doesn’t mean I no longer lay claim to my past, especially the part of my life that included Sophia. I will always carry her in my heart. There are times when I just know she is next to me.
The freedom I am referring to means no longer being held back by anything that is keeping me from living my destiny. It means no longer being defined by situations and circumstances that are out of my control. It means no longer blaming myself for all the pain Sophia had to endure.
Instead, I’ve made a choice to cherish and be thankful for the wonderful times I shared with her. It’s not easy. Some mornings I wake up and still struggle with anger and sadness. But my reaction today is much different.
I choose to release those emotions. I choose to exercise gratefulness, which always makes for a better day. With that powerful principle, I was able to remove the roots of bitterness from my heart. Doing so allowed the seeds of thankfulness and joy to take its place. Since that time, my heart harvested and cultivated those attributes.
The Future Holds Promise
Having hope in front of me got me out of the darkness. It helped me realize I must live moving forward.
The past is a catalyst for who I am today. But I am not living in my past, as the future holds a lot of promise.
I strongly urge you to examine your life and let go, once and for all, of those things that are holding you back. It could be a harmful self-image, disappointments, setbacks, wrong relationships, or anything else that holds you in the pit of your past that might keep you from embracing your present and future.
Become like a child and don’t let your heart hang on to those things. Let yourself bounce back with new hope and second chances. The best is yet to come for you. Believe it; it’s yours for the taking.
The present is now. Today is your chance to embrace everything and everyone in it and get ready for what’s to come.
The present holds the most precious gift for you and me: the chance to love the people in our lives. Some of those people are likely easy to love. Some of those people aren’t. It doesn’t matter. I would much rather spend the rest of my life loving people than continuing to hold on to the baggage from my past or buy into the idea that suddenly things are just going to change. That never happens.
Whatever you are holding on to, recognize that it has a grip on you.
Whatever has a grip on you, believe you have the power to release it.
Whatever you have released, celebrate that you are ready to move forward.
You will be surprised how beautiful life is when you let go of what you don’t understand and can’t control. Refuse to let the things you can’t control take control of you. Before you can find purpose in your darkest moments, you must be free from the lingering bitterness in your soul that clouds your judgment, disrupts your relationships, and prevents you from seeing the hope that is right in front of you.
Chapter 7
We All Start Somewhere
You can’t control where you begin, but it doesn’t have to determine where you’re going.
Where we begin can be either an anchor or a launching pad.
I’m a midwesterner through and through. This is where I begin, where the story of my life starts. My hometown is Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We work hard, care for the people we love, and generally have a positive outlook on life. The Midwest is the heartland of American industry, the place that built America over the past century or so — at least as long as America has depended on industry as an economic engine.
I am one of six children — fifth in line with four sisters and an older brother. Growing up in a family of our size was an interesting experience. We couldn’t even fit in one car. And we never went anywhere quickly. Actually, we didn’t go many places at all besides school and church.
I love how I grew up. It wasn’t always easy, but I had someone to care for and look after me. And I constantly had someone to play with (or get into trouble with, whichever seemed to be the better idea at the moment).
My dad worked in construction, and much of what he did was dangerous. At one point, he blasted rock underground in the sewer system. He had a few close encounters with death, and a few of his coworkers were actually killed. But my dad considered it his responsibility to provide for his family. He went to work and never complained, even through sickness and injury. The work he did really took a toll on his body, even to this day. He was also laid off multiple times due to the nature of his job and had as many as three jobs at one time. I can only imagine how tired he was most days, yet he always had time for us.
My mom was great with kids and invested a lot in us. She didn’t work outside the home because she was raising us, and six kids can be a handful. She was a professional babysitter, and that’s how she made money. I don’t know why she’d want to add other people’s kids to the chaos, but it was more friends for me. I can’t remember a time when our home wasn’t full of children. Even after an exhausting day of babysitting, cooking, laundry, and other household duties, my mom still took time to read to us and pray with us each night.
Neither of my parents graduated from high school. They met early in life, got married, and started a family. While I’m sure my parents knew that education creates more opportunity, life got in the way and happened quicker than they’d imagined. The responsibility to care for a family at a young age is heavy. Like a lot of people, my parents had to depend on their survival instinct and strong work ethic to make ends meet.
In addition to working hard, my parents taught us to have faith. I can’t remember a time when faith wasn’t part of my life. Faith has always been part of who I am, and it always will be. For a long time, our family attended the church my grandfather pastored. At best, it averaged fifty people per week. It was a small, nondenominational church located in a rough part of town. There were always break-ins, and it wasn’t unusual for one of us to find our car had been broken int
o while we were in church.
Some of my earliest memories are from church. I’ve attended a variety of churches over the years, but my first church will always hold a special place in my heart. We were active members in my grandfather’s church until I was twelve. This is where my faith began.
Musical Beginnings
I grew up around music. My family used to sing in front of the whole church — all eight of us, just like the Partridge Family. Mom and Dad wrote songs and sang at weddings. Dad was the song leader at the church we attended when I was very young. Mom and my aunt directed the children’s choir, so we were always involved in plays, even some leading roles.
Dad always seemed to have a guitar in hand and a song on his lips. He would make a song out of anything. Whether it was time to get up, go to school, or eat, he always said it with a song. We would all harmonize with him. Even when we didn’t want to do something, Dad would sing a song and somehow the task at hand became interesting.
When I was five, Dad bought me a small, pint-sized guitar that looked just like his. Although mine was never in tune, I played it like it was. When Dad led worship, he would let me come onstage with him with my little guitar. I would mimic him strumming his guitar and he’d play with me and smile. I loved to listen to Mom sing at church too and would try to match her voice. That is how I learned to harmonize. We often sang as a family when we were together, especially at my grandparents’ house. I also played trumpet from fifth to tenth grade.
A Simple, Good Life
For the first few years of my life, we lived in a duplex owned by my grandparents. It had three bedrooms and wasn’t big enough to keep us from stepping all over each other. It wasn’t until I was about seven years old that my parents bought a single-family home of their own.
We didn’t have a lot of extras, but I never really thought about us being poor. The main time we had the sense that we didn’t have as much as others was during Christmas. Other kids at school would talk about all the cool gifts they got, and I was suddenly aware we didn’t have all those things.
As you can imagine, we went through a ton of food. Some people use the phrase “a ton of food” as a way to describe how they feel after eating too much. But eight people go through, literally, a ton of food. The sheer cost of food — if we purchased it at the local grocery store — would have been overwhelming for just about any family, especially mine. Because my grandfather was a pastor, he had access to a secondhand food shelter nearby that offered day-old food at a significant discount to homeless shelters and other programs that fed the hungry. This is how our family of eight had enough to eat; it was a saving grace for us. The label-less and dented cans made every meal a surprise. The rule was you had to eat whatever was in the mystery can you picked. (We always hoped it wouldn’t be beets.)
Being one of six kids, you learn to share everything. Nothing is really your own. This created a “Take all you can while you can” mentality in me. I later learned just how unhealthy living with that mindset is. When “taking all I can” didn’t work, I discovered that generosity was the key to getting everything I wanted in life.
Who you become is not determined by how much you have but rather by what sacrifices you’re willing to make. Great athletes take care of their bodies and avoid substances and habits that could harm them. Great musicians care for their talents and avoid lifestyles that could prematurely destroy their God-given abilities. Great leaders care for their influence and avoid making decisions that could damage their reputations.
My parents did the best they could with what they knew to do. Their love for us and unwavering commitment to sacrifice for our needs again and again is something I’ll never forget. They taught me that whatever is important to you is worth sacrificing for.
The way I see it, my family lived the American Dream. That means different things to different people, of course. To me, the American Dream is less about what you have as it is about who you get to do life with. I think sometimes we confuse the American Dream with what we possess. It’s as if there is a power that comes from accumulating things. I think that mentality can be toxic because it takes our eyes off the things that have real value: people and relationships. Things and success aren’t the foundation upon which the American Dream exists; families and friendships are. I was part of a family who loved me and wanted to help me have a better life. We loved each other deeply, and this is what mattered most to us.
The Strength of a Family
I can’t think of any other place that influences our minds, hearts, and lives more than the homes we grow up in. It’s where we first learn how to relate to others, how to care for one another, and — more important — how to depend on each other. That’s why it was so difficult when we found out there was infidelity in my parents’ marriage. It’s funny how one day can change everything. They decided to get a divorce. I was nineteen, and nothing was the same after that. It was tough and a huge blow to the bond our family had built over the years. The pain of the infidelity caused my parents to act differently than we’d always known them. My parents became two individuals acting on their own instead of the supportive team our family needed. I always thought our family was exceptionally tight and had a bond that would never be broken. When it was severed, it took a long time to adjust. Everything I knew was reordered and rearranged.
My parents didn’t intend to get a divorce, but things just fell apart over the years. That decision still affects me to this day. There’s not a “real home” to go to when I visit Milwaukee, and family traditions around the holidays — or even just being together — aren’t the same. The security I found in my family was gone. Home was no longer a place of refuge because both my parents, whom I had depended on, weren’t in the house I called home up to that point.
There is never a time when you don’t need a parental figure in your life. The home should be a place where you feel loved and covered. When a home is broken, so is that sense of security. My parents’ divorce wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted my mom and dad to be together, but sometimes life comes at you in the most unexpected ways, even ways you can’t understand or process. You just have to do your best to learn from those things and keep moving forward. I needed to deal with it so it wouldn’t make me bitter or resentful.
It has been many years since my parents divorced, and we are still coming to a place of healing as a family. But through all the drama and brokenness, we manage to love each other. In fact, our love for each other today is stronger than ever. Divorce divides and leaves people broken, but that doesn’t mean things have to stay that way forever.
The split in my family was painful, but nevertheless, my family is still my family. Although it’s not the same as it was before, we are slowly picking up the fragmented pieces and putting them back together. I find a lot of strength for today from the environment I called home and the family I called my own growing up. Our relationships still need some healing, but we have looked past each other’s faults, and love has helped us overcome. When we get together as a family now, it’s fun and obnoxious — in the best sort of way. We may express our love for each other in somewhat unconventional ways, but the love we have is very evident, even when we don’t see eye to eye.
Your Future Is Yours
Many people think only those of privilege and money have access to amazing opportunities. I had neither growing up, but some very significant doors were opened for me over the years. What is most important is that while I treasured my past, I didn’t let it define me or blind me to the opportunities that came along.
There is power that comes when we free ourselves from our past and open ourselves to greater things. That’s what I found when I took those small steps my parents wanted me to take. They knew that just as my past had prepared me in some ways for life, it could also become an anchor that limits creativity and imagination. Where you begin doesn’t have to be where you end. Instead, see your past as what has uniquely positioned you to launch forward into great things — things you
have yet to see, consider, or dream about.
You can’t control who your parents are, how you grew up, or what opportunities you did or did not receive. Instead, remember that:
You are free from your past.
You don’t have to become something you are not.
You can’t control where you came from, but it doesn’t have to determine where you are going.
My family is my family. How I grew up is how I grew up. While it certainly shaped me, I wouldn’t say it defines me. It may have planted some seeds — good and bad — that I’ve either had to cultivate or eliminate as I’ve grown and matured, but it is not the full measure of who I am or even who I am becoming.
My parents always encouraged me to make different decisions than they did about money, career, and education. They didn’t want me to automatically make the same choices they made; they wanted something better for me. My parents knew I had the potential to break free of anything that might hold me back and move toward all I was created and destined to become. I don’t even think my parents knew what the right answers were, but the encouragement to make better decisions than they did affected me and made me pursue a different life for myself.
Too many people think that because their parents were alcoholics, drug addicts, or even criminals, they are destined to follow that same path. Many people subconsciously become what their parents were because they haven’t been exposed to anything else. What we see growing up does play a huge role in who we become and how we live. Every choice leads us somewhere. The good and bad will add up to how our lives will play out in the future.
Where you came from is important. Don’t forget that. Don’t let it fade. Remind yourself of it regularly. But don’t obsess over it to the point that you repeat what you intended to avoid.
