Are You Holding On Too Tightly?

Nicole Johnson reflects on a mother’s love and when excessive devotion can keep them from being fed. 

If you let a loved one become an idol in your heart, you endanger that one — as well as yourself.

Is that what I’m doing?

And if so, it begs the question: how does a mother distinguish between love and idolatry when it comes to her children?

When I think of idolatry, I picture altars and candles and the worship of innate objects. A closer look however expands the definition to the “excessive devotion to anything.”

Ah.

Okay.

That brings me closer to an understanding of how I may be stepping up to the line — or perhaps crossing it — from time to time.

The admonition felt personal. It was part of a larger passage from Jesus Calling, a daily devotional of sorts that reads as if Jesus called you up for a check-in and, in the midst of what is otherwise a casual chat, you find you’ve been handed a dose of wisdom you didn’t know you needed.

More often than not, the message of the day seems somehow uniquely tailored to the reader’s current life situation. This particular day was no exception. It came in the midst of my own efforts to support and love my child through a particularly challenging time.

When You Are Called to Let Go

The passage went on to say:

Entrust your loved ones to Me; release them into My protective care. They are much safer with Me than in your clinging hands.

In the course of my searching, I happened upon the movie The Children’s Train, a fictionalized portrayal of the transport of nearly 70,000 children from post-war southern Italy in 1946 to central and northern regions less devastated by the war.

The main character is a young boy, the only child of a single mother. He is malnourished in every way. He is existing, but to say he is living would be a stretch. He has only rags to cover his frighteningly skeletal frame, has no shoes to speak of, and is emotionally starved by a mother too wounded to express the love she feels for her child.

He and several other children from his poverty-stricken town board a train — part of what became historically known as the Happiness Trains — and travel north to wealthier communities where families have promised to feed and care for them until their own families can begin rebuilding their lives.

It is heart-wrenching to watch the mothers place their children on that train.

The harsh reality that they are unable to provide even the most basic sustenance for their children is a pain too great for them to fully acknowledge. Their expressions are stoic, yet as I watched the scene unfold, I could almost feel the shaking throughout their bodies as they desperately tried to control the depth of their fear and grief.

They were trusting the families in the north — mothers and fathers they had never met — to care for and love their children.

How Strong is Strong Enough?

Would I have been strong enough to let my child go?

Could I have accepted — owned — the truth that, at least for a time, I could not give my child what he needed? Could I have admitted that he might be better off in someone else’s care?

Would my “excessive devotion” have clouded the reality that I could not provide what he needed to grow?

Or would my devotion be the very strength I needed to place him on that train?

Perhaps that is the answer.

Yes.

This is what I am called to do — not just love them well — but love them enough to place them on the train.

To let them be fed by the One who knows what they truly need.

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Copyright 2026 Nicole Johnson
Images: Canva