A Confession

Surrender.

It’s such a loaded word, don’t you agree?

It bears a hefty weight—awkward to maneuver. It’s all-consuming if you happen to get it right.

Its fancy synonyms demand no less—try replacing surrender with acquiesce, capitulate, or succumb in your next prayers—all saying, ‘Yes, Lord, thank you!’—in essence, ‘I give up!’ or ‘I agree,’ ‘Your way, not my way,’ and see how nicely they fit between you and God. Nothing comfortable or pretty about these strange words—they are a virtual dying to self.

Surrender has been dogging my heels for months.

Perhaps I would benefit from the practice, but I’ve never been one who annually picks a word or generally lays claim that God gave me a Word, but there you have it. At this moment, surrender waits, patiently insistent, scoping me out around every turn. I’ve felt, in truth, hunted.

I wonder, have you ever experienced the same or similar in your life?

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What in the world might God be hounding me about regarding this adamant, incessant bidding? Because it’s the Holy Spirit’s prompting—I know it. I can’t say I’ve yet explored its vast limits, but I’ll start with what I’ve come to know.

Not long ago, a friend challenged me that I use the phrase, ‘I’m frustrated’ an awful lot lately, and she wondered what that might mean for me. I thanked her for her attention—I hadn’t yet conscientiously acknowledged to myself the frequency of frustration taking up residency in my vocabulary or stated feelings. Imagine not noticing yourself as such like that!

Before prayerful consideration, I could tell my friend this somewhat extended vexation meant just what I’d said—I was frustrated with any number of things, thus far unable to put a finger on their more extensive meaning. Upon reflection, it didn’t take me long to discover a few obvious whys, but they did rather surprise me.

Backtracking recent encounters of random irritation, I began to see a pattern develop—failure…memory lapse…failure…ball-drop…mistake…failure…family suffering…soft choices…more soft choices…big losses out of my control…failure… [randomly toss and repeat].

• I discovered evidence of unconfessed sin, but worse, a repeated fear-induced refusal to trust God’s provision of His forgiveness and mercy—like, REALLY trust it.
• Living life as a single has opened up a whole new world of high-cost/high-consequence decisions and responsibilities not previously borne alone. Excuse me, but it’s a landmine out there, girls!
• Grief. Continuing to process the realities of recent tragedies—as in more than one. Powerless to right, wrongs. Hands tied. Inadequate help to offer. No tidy answers.

There’s little wonder frustration had wedged its deceptively bitter sorry self into the depths of my soul!

Trusting God

Apparently, hidden in the recesses of my being, I’ve been stacking up unrepented sin again, grossly soft choices, ‘too intentional, too repetitive to be forgiven,’ so the old dirge drones. Disappointed to encounter it again. This sloping, treacherous, well-worn path is not new to me.

I could have challenged such lies if they had sooner made it to my conscience mind, but through additional tragedy, emergency weeks-long traveling, freshly lobbed grief bombs, the holidays, three delightful sets of out-of-town family guests, an all-consuming battle with Influenza A, successfully dodging a nasty in-house bout of Norovirus, and a square strike of ‘you know what’ knocking over two entire households of my adult kids and grandbabies—I haven’t been playing with a full deck much, around here. Not that these are an excuse or anything.

No Biblical Christian dares say such nonsensical heresies regarding forgiveness, but our unrestrained thoughts and feelings may shout them. Committed as I am to honest Biblical truth, my buried, unchallenged thinking can, for a time, randomly align with such lies like any other human being. Those thoughts had clearly veered far from their generally intended truth-seeking course.

My spirit longed for the compassion of God even as He faithfully continued to offer it for the taking. There lay the frustration. When I refused with shame born of some misplaced sense of pride, I essentially denied the very value of the Good News of Jesus. Who wouldn’t be discontented when stuck in this miry sort of faulty resistance?

If you ever feel trapped in such a filthy rotten place, the answer is clear—repent. Surrender, for goodness sake. Run to Jesus, whether it’s the first time or the 40 millionth. He’s waiting. Trust His overwhelming goodness. He doesn’t change. [1 John 1:9, Romans 2:4, 2 Peter 3:9, James 1:17]

Fear Of Failure

I admit (nakedly exposed as it makes me feel to say it), as much as I miss, Miss, MISS my Stache and all the wonders he brought mine and our family’s life, I’ve enjoyed spreading my wings now and then this past year. Some decisions are downright fun to make by my lonesome. The rest leave me nervous, doubtful of my strength in wisdom, and frankly, have exposed more of my capacity for literal failure than peace.

Perhaps the frustration is more evident than the surrender here. It’s a spiritual work to remember I’m not actually alone, to let go and let God, as they say. God showed Himself personally invested and faithful in my life years ago. Still, I must continue to trust Him—to weed out fear. He alone is able to keep me from falling. [Isaiah 41:10, 2 Timothy 1:7, Psalm 34:4, John 14:27, Jude 24-25]

Powerlessness And Faith

I’ve never been and never will be enough to fill Stache’s shoes. My best guess is it’s most honoring not to try—to acknowledge and celebrate his unreachable greatness—never defined by perfection—but uniquely awesome. He was most certainly all that. By God’s grace, I am me—an honest conceding surrender of its own.

On any given day, I catch a glimpse of my loved ones hurting, wounds still wide, inflamed, and open—tempting mortality—waiting with little hope for miraculous healing.

Powerless to heal such threatening wounds requires a daily, sometimes hourly re-binding of a bruised and beaten faith in a good, good God. The very nature of faith is trusting in things unseen—even as we experience the rawness of sheer agony.

Faith trusts in God’s goodness when the sweetest gifts this side of Heaven are literally yanked and forever stolen from our unsuspecting grip—life never again the way we loved it. Why would God stand by and allow such?! These realities in my life and yours sooner resemble images of a living hell than anything good. Some call this sort of faith ignorantly blind.

Yet surrendering to the Creator, the only One trustworthy to heal our brokenness is blessed and right. Some days I’m better at this faith thing than others—I’m guessing it’s likewise for some of you. [Hebrews 11:1, 2 Corinthians 5:7, Romans 15:13, 1 John 5:4]

Bitterness

Recognizing a relentless undercurrent of grievances—bitterness against our circumstances, people, and even God, can cloud the truth of Jesus in our lives. Typically, I am completely intolerant of this wicked vise. But nothing about the last year has been typical.

Who of you is an expert at spotting bitterness? Be warned, I honestly thought I was. Still, the creeper gave its best and grabbed ahold.

Bitterness is not only a destructive, invasive weed. It erodes the beautiful and quite literally rots the strong. Search out and destroy the thing if it ever sneaks in. [Acts 8:23, Hebrews 12:15, Ephesians 4:31-32, James 1:19-20]

A Good Occupation

God gave us good work to do—not for salvation, but for the obedience of God and the building up of saints—you and me. Take a fresh look at Colossians 3 (one of my say-it-all favorites). It’s a beautiful picture of living a life surrendered to Christ.

We need each other to fill the roles He intended us to fill. Determine to chase after the things of God for your own good and the good of others. Love deeply, express compassion purposefully, kindly encourage, and speak truth into each other’s lives. [1 Corinthians 13:4-8, Romans 14:19, Ephesians 4:29, 1 Thessalonians 5:11, Romans 15:2, Hebrews 3:13]

Best of all, born-again Christ followers have the Holy Spirit within. Acknowledge Him. Allow Him to help and to heal. He didn’t leave us to battle through this broken world alone. [Acts 2:38, Romans 8:26, 1 Corinthians 6:19, Galatians 5:22-23]

Surrendered ~ Grammie [Psalm 73-21-26]

Epilogue

I’m so thankful to Jesus, who willingly untangles and sets us free daily, hour-to-hour, minute-by-minute. I’m incredibly talented at creating messes—but You, God. You are faithful to save.

Thank you, courageous friend, for your wise, intuitive questions.

And thank you to the many co-laboring friends and family, all of whom God has placed in my life. He uses your prayers and kindness to hold me up more than you know. You are loved dearly—God bless you, each one.