Ayoung mountain climber named Aron Ralston was hiking in a remote section of Utah when an eight hundred pound boulder shifted and trapped his arm. For five days, he tried to do everything he could to free himself. He had a little pocket knife and hour after hour he attempted to chip away at the boulder and when that didn’t work he tried to use his climbing gear to shift the rock, but it would not budge . Three days later he was still stuck in the same position, and by then his arm was completely dead. It had no blood flow and it was cold and hard. Aron’s arm was dead and he thought he was going to die, too. So he made a decision to do the unthinkable; if he was going to survive, he would have to cut off his arm. And believe it or not he wrapped a tourniquet around his arm and with the same pocket knife he’d used to try to chip away at the boulder he started to amputate his own arm. After he cut off his arm, he walked two miles before someone saw and rescued him and miraculously Aron was saved.

There is a moment in all of our lives when something is finished and done with, and there’s nothing we can do about it. Something has died. We may not understand why, and it may not be fair, but in the face of that realization we have to make a choice. Are we going to hang on and allow that dead thing to drag us down and defeat us as well? Or like the courageous young man are we going to move forward no matter what? If something is dead in our lives we don’t have to die with it. We can decide to live. We can choose life, but we may have to let something go in the process. Don’t hold onto the dead things in your life. Give the situation to God, let it go and move on. Maybe a dream has died? Do not die with it, let it go, cut it off! Maybe a relationship has died, don’t allow it to kill you! If you are struggling with forgiveness and feel that it’s choked the life out of you, let it go! Let go! Move on! Choose life, not death!