Let Them Go with a Smile

By Jinan Zeidan

Have you lost someone so dear that you felt they left a huge space in your life? Have you been mad when someone you truly loved betrayed you? Have you ever felt that a piece of your heart is gone, because you miss someone so precious, and he or she is not in your life anymore? Has a friend from the past shown up unexpectedly and left you again with broken heart? Have you ever found it hard to let go of people you really love, and hard to forgive those who cause you pain? In this book you will read soulful essays that will make you stop and think. Think about how life is too short to not forgive those who hurt us, to spend time with our loved ones, and to show love and caring before its too late.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Dec 6, 2011
• ISBN: 9781468505283

Jinan Zeidan

Jinan Zeidan, a young writer from Lebanon, started writing at an early age. This is her first book. She writes about the topics that touch our daily lives deeply, such as suicides, death, friendship, betrayal, forgiveness, and love. Her essays are clear, honest, and simple. Through her writing she teaches that simplicity and honesty and being ourselves are the shortest ways to reach other people’s heart. She believes that climbing to the top of the mountain is different from getting there by helicopter.

Book preview

Let Them Go with a Smile

Life goes on and so do we. Even after the chances we miss, the risks we take and fail at, the people who come our way just to hurt us and leave, it’s all good. Even if those things that hurt us leave a scar, it would be all good if you just let everything go with a smile from your heart.

Fear—the feeling weakens us, sometimes paralyzes us, and won’t allow us to move forward, always backward. We fear flying or taking the risk of it, but do we really fear flying or are we scared of falling down? Whenever we miss a chance, or hesitation crosses our mind, or bad ideas flow toward our imagination, one question we should ask is, are we scared of taking those chances, or are we really afraid of missing them?

Life goes on if we just let go with a smile all that happens to us. The smile won’t heal, but it gives us hope to move forward. All the tears we cry hurt our eyes, but they also purify our hearts and souls. They give us a new outlook toward certain things or certain people we meet. Everything happens for a reason.

People cross our paths from nowhere. Some come for a short time and leave after they cause a huge heartache. Some become a big part of our lives for years, but then they let us down for no reason, except that life changed them. And some swear nothing will tear you apart, yet they would be the first to betray your friendship. We better let them all go with a smile, never regretting knowing them.

How many times do we ask why? But do we truly want to know the answer to that why? We worry about knowing the truth, because sometimes behind every truth is a mask that we thought was the face of the person we loved. A truth will be revealed every time we ask why. The reality of those we miss might show, and our smiles might fade away as those who promised to come back someday never do. Is it better to keep asking why? Without knowing the reason, we keep wondering, but it’s better to let it go with a smile.

God sends a lesson with every person we meet to make us learn whom we should trust, and to whom we should give second chances. What’s more, God teaches us through them the great lesson of forgiveness. Never have hard feelings toward those who caused you heartache. Forgive them, let them go with a smile from your heart, and have faith that God will send you the right people at the right time.

Life is full of surprises, not all of them happy ones. Sometimes nature surprises us with crisis, but after the crisis has passed, we stand up, fix the damages, and move forward. Nature might surprise us with yet another crisis, a hurricane or an earthquake. Millions of people lose their lives in those crises, but it’s a test for other millions of people to accept what they lost and to start over. The question is, how much faith do we have in God, that we can thank him and be ready to let it go with a smile? Every day is a new chance we take, a new risk we should be ready to make. We should accept it if we missed those chances, or failed in the risks we took. Every day a new person comes our way. We should expect that those people we are meeting today came for a reason. Never regret what you face in your daily life. If you are wise enough, you should be ready to accept it all with an open heart.

Life goes on, and so do we. We leave behind the chances we missed; the risks we were afraid to take; the people who came and left without a trace, except for the scars that remind us never to repeat the same mistakes. Life goes on. It would be all good if you just believed in God and let it go with a smile from your heart… .

Human Just Like You

Please stop. How many people have shouted those words? And how many others have screamed it silently on the inside? When a person forgets that the one he or she hurt is a human, violence can cross the limits and even lead to death. How many families are facing this issue? I prefer to name it disease or addiction. When the human mind stops working, stops thinking, the path to violence is open in their thoughts. When the brain stops working, stops holding a person back from beating his victim, he forgets who this person he is hitting is whether it’s his mother, child, sister, or wife. A man can become addicted to beating others. It might take away all his anger and stress, but it puts all on the wrong person. It’s a disease indeed. It is spread all over the world and it destroys families and lives.

How many women are beaten to death whom no one knows about? They might have screamed and begged for mercy, and their children might have witnessed what happened to their mothers, but what can a child do? As much as abuse affects the mother, it also affects the children. Will they be violent with their friends or their own families when they grow up? Or will their inner injuries make them live in fear? Afraid they cannot protect themselves, will they always consider others a danger to their lives, because the closest person to them has caused so much damage. Will they always have the fear that they will die by violence?

When I think about those who are violent to others, I believe they don’t know God. If they did, they would fear to hurt his creatures. They are hurting someone of flesh and blood, leaving bruises on her face and body, bleeding wounds, fear in her eyes. They dig insecurity deep into her soul, as she fears that this wild person might sneak into her room and hit her if she dares to sleep and dream.

Those who cause all this unbearable pain don’t know God, or fear him. It is the devil’s work in their souls when their minds stop working and they become wild. They have nothing to be grateful for, because if they did they would find peace. We always think, what if we were in their shoes. We don’t know what they are going through that they act like that, but I can’t even imagine being in their shoes. The reason it is so hard to know what they are thinking is simply because they are not thinking.

Only imagine a child’s eyes begging someone to stop beating him… . It makes me wish I could do something to stop this violence that is spread all over the world. Violence has many faces. It’s not only physical. There is also verbal aggression, and that kind of violence can injure more than physical harm. The words a person uses to oppress and control are so harsh and ruthless, they could push someone to suicide. Words can harm more than a bullet sometimes. They play with people’s minds, making them think they are nothing, or that they did something bad, even though they didn’t. Making others feel guilt for something they never did can cause the problem to spread. Playing on other people’s distress might make them lose their minds, might drive them to act in very wrong ways. If they act in harmful ways with others, then those who were the victims become the criminals without ever thinking about what they are doing.

People change and become hard to deal with for many reasons. They lose control of their lives, or circumstances force them to face unforeseen difficulties. Lately, economic problems are affecting the whole world and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless. Many others are unemployed, and this can create more violence. Some have killed their families because they don’t want them to live in poverty. Others commit suicide. They have lost hope and, of course, faith. If they had had faith, they would have prayed to God help them. But in their situation, with the shocks they received, their brains stopped working and they took their own lives. Others might start to steal to feed their families. They don’t want to, but they have no choice. This kind of person is not necessarily dangerous, but he can become violent in