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The Prayer That Must Let Go

Surrendering to Love

My sincere thanks to my dear friends Linda and Charlie White and their daughter Erin, who lived this story with such integrity and allowed it to showcase the prayer that must let go.

In the fall of 1992, Erin White entered Tulsa University’s engineering program and moved to campus as she had always planned. She charged into the experience with her usual fervor, challenged by the academics and involved in student activities. To her surprise, she was elected president of her dorm her sophomore year. In the meantime, she met and fell in love with Joey. They became engaged on her twenty-first birthday. 

But early winter 1995, the unthinkable interrupted Erin’s dreams. The first indication of concern was rapid weight loss—twenty pounds during the month of December alone. Erin’s five feet, four inches frame was emaciated. Early tests run for a possible thyroid disorder came back negative.

Erin’s initial concern was diminished as her father had been diagnosed with colon cancer and, after surgery was cancer-free. She optimistically reasoned that her outcome would be like his, a complete recovery. Understandably, her parents were grief-stricken. I can never forget the anguish on her father’s face in those days.

Between January and April, Erin underwent a round of radiation to shrink the tumor in preparation for surgery. Immediately after surgery, Linda and Charlie were summoned to a private post-op consultation. The cancer had spread well beyond the intestinal wall into the surrounding tissue and liver. Removing the tumor and a pelvic sweep were deemed too invasive and would have diminished Erin’s quality of life. With the addition of a colostomy, the surgeons had closed the incision with the tumor still in place. The next step would be chemotherapy followed in later months by radiation on isolated spots on her bones.

Not long after Erin’s surgery, Linda was alone in the car. As hope and fear churned together, a prayer poured forth unbidden and seared tears: “I don’t want to let her go, Lord, but if one person could be saved through this, I release her.” Even as the prayer left her lips, she wanted to grab it back. No, no! That was not what she wanted to say at all. How could she ever let Erin go? But she knew that the Holy Spirit had authored that prayer, and she let it stand. This was Linda’s moment to let go. It was the next step in her established love relationship with her Father, and a most loving act on behalf of her daughter. 

 

Releasing Erin to be an adult was the next faith hurdle for her parents. When she expressed her frustration with her medical team for addressing their comments exclusively to her parents, Linda and Charlie stepped back from the position of decision-makers, and they empowered her to determine her own treatment. She also wanted to continue living in her apartment at TU, even though the last two required classes for her degree would not be offered again until January. This sacrifice was painful. They wanted her at home so that they could enjoy and protect her. But in this too their wills were finally relinquished to Jesus. 

Cancer has a way of purifying the best and pruning the rest. For Erin, the unimportant fell away, and the important became priceless. “I love you” slipped into her conversations and actions. She surprised my children with a balloon bouquet, started a Bible study in her dorm, and shared her testimony with the church youth group. This is not to say she was impervious to the realities of cancer. She still had her personal frustrations, painful nights, and private tears, but she didn’t allow these to limit her. 

In January 1997, Erin eagerly enrolled in her final two classes at TU. But now, Erin’s strength had begun to give way. By April 11, chemo treatments were discontinued, and she moved home. With tenacity and her mother’s help, she managed classes through Wednesday, April 16.  

On Friday night, April 18, the president of Tulsa University and some of Erin’s professors presented her engineering diploma in her family room. Erin couldn’t quite believe it was hers, but they insisted that she had more than earned it. The rapid growth of tumors had so changed Erin’s appearance since they had last seen her—a single week for some of them—that her professors openly wept as they said their goodbyes to Charlie on the front porch. Their unmasked grief startled him. He suddenly realized that His little girl’s life was ending. This was Charlie’s moment to let go. 

The next morning Erin was able to visit a bit from bed, but by Saturday night, she was slipping into a coma and becoming restless. As Linda ministered in the quiet room, Erin began to whisper. “I can’t do this anymore. God, I just can’t do this anymore.” Waking Charlie, they slipped into her bed, one on each side. “You have your diploma. You have seen your brothers. We’ll be okay. You don’t have to fight anymore. We love you.” In these moments, Erin released her own life to God for the final time, and a peace that could be felt enveloped the room. 

On Sunday afternoon, Erin suddenly opened her eyes and said, “I’m halfway there, and this room is filled with people.” These were her last words on earth. Erin slipped into Heaven not many hours later. She had fought the good fight—and won.

Also called “the prayer of relinquishment,” the prayer that must let go is the altar of the soul. An altar is the specific time and place where we release or submit our will to God and leave the outcome in His control. In these moments, we lay the dearest parts of who we are and those we love before God and step back, not knowing what will happen next. This solitary, suspended moment can feel perilously risky. 

In their crisis with cancer, Linda, Charlie, and Erin willed what was pleasant and expected—a happy, normal life. Who wouldn’t? Satan willed to destroy Erin’s physical and spiritual life and discredit the reputation of God. But God, our God, willed to redeem the enemy’s plan and profoundly bless the Whites. He willed to bring glory to Himself through exploits on their behalf. And as the White family relinquished their wills to His higher purposes, that is exactly what He did. (For Erin’s full testimony of His goodness, see my book Prayers That Must).

 

As you have read Erin’s story, perhaps you have been inspired to risk more in prayer but can’t imagine submitting your will in similar ways. What happens if you see the value of the prayer that must let go but are not willing to pray it? The next best prayer is, “Lord, I am willing to be made willing.” This prayer releases His strength to begin to make the transaction possible. The prayer that must let go is relational prayer centered in a love relationship with Jesus. Because He knows that the relinquishment of our will can be filled with pain—He knows this from personal experience, He sustains us in the midst of it. In the act of release, the Spirit bestows a surge of grace, and His presence becomes the benediction. Praise His name! As we let go, we free-fall into the arms of Love and Love is a Person.