And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt. ~Sylvia Plath

Tuesday, April 3, 2018

Surrender

Last year was a time of waiting and surrender.    God had already revealed to me that change was coming, but first I was in a season of wait. Honestly, I had no idea what that meant.  I had no idea what change was coming, or what I was supposed to do other than surrender.  What change?  I wondered and I worried.  I whispered in quiet moments to God.  I asked what change was coming.  I thought if he could just tell me I could be better prepared, if he would just reveal something to me I would know what to do.  Each time he whispered back.  "Wait, trust me.  Surrender."  As you can imagine, this was not exactly the answer I wanted to hear.  I like to have a plan.  I am the kind of person who starts my day with a list and by the time I close my eyes at night-every single item will be crossed off that list.  It seemed the more I asked, the quieter God got.  The more I asked, the more his answer stayed the same.

Ok God, I give in, I surrender.  (See what happened there?  I did what I was directed to do from the beginning.)  Trust. Wait.  Surrender.  That was what I was directed to do, and that is what I did.  Day after day, week after week, month after month.  I waited.  I surrendered.  I prayed that God would dig deep into the darkest parts of my life.  I prayed that he would reveal every single piece of my life that I had not yet surrendered.  I asked him to show me anything I had not yet released into his care and his provision, which by the way, is infinitely better than my own.  God provided daily encouragement to keep surrendering, and wait.

Surrendering at times got messy and confusing, but I like to think that life's greatest moments, and life's greatest lessons happen in those messy moments of surrender where we have finally let go of control and we let God.  

Eventually, I began to lose sight of the waiting and began to relax into the surrender.  I stopped needing to know and I just let go.  So of course, that is when change happened.  Change that had started as a seedling, grew full fledged in a matter of weeks.  God in a complete surprise asked me to leave both my jobs and head into new territory.  For many people this might seem a minor change, but for me it was a life altering experience.  I left two jobs I had worked for 10, and 15 years.  Two jobs that I loved.  I had been so certain that God was building my heart to move into ministry full time, and God came swooping in and smacked me in the forehead with something totally different.

The monumental amount of mourning that came with this change and moving into the next season of life was something I never really expected.  I was still going to see all the people I had worked with for so long, and every single prayer I had been praying for the last six months was being answered in this transition.  I knew I was making the right choice, and I knew I was going where God was calling but as I left church on my last Sunday on staff something inside of me was crushed.  Something was broken.  The joy I had felt, in surrendering to God and what he was asking me to do, quickly turned into mourning what I had to leave behind.

Months went by before I really started to feel like I was adjusting to my new normal, but in that time I felt strong even when things seemed out of control.  I felt at peace even when things were rough.  I cried tough tears, and I mourned, and I felt myself stretch and grow in new ways.  I felt a new kind of grounding that I knew would never have happened if I hadn't been in full surrender before all the change happened.  It is still a process.  I am growing, but with each passing day and with each new challenge my faith grows. 

I know that I stepped out in faith not sure what the future was going to hold, but knowing that God knew and that was going to be enough.  I needed those months of adjustment in order to be better prepared for what he had next for me.   Now, as I embrace this new season of my life I can finally see what God saw.  I can understand where he was leading me.  I am seeing the fruits of each day as I continue to surrender.   I am standing in this new phase of life and I can say it is good!

I cannot promise it will be easy, and I cannot promise that you won't be stretched and challenged.  But I can promise that if God is calling you it will be good.  Trust.  Wait.  Surrender.


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