Beautiful, Ugly Surrender

January 2021 God confirmed the word He and I would be working on for the year was surrender. Ever since I traded making a list of new year resolutions for the one word un-resolution, I’ve witnessed results. Results that are not quickly nor easily attained. But ones that take time, patience, trust, practice, struggle, and – all year. Surrender was no different. It’s taken me all year to lift my white flag. And if I’m honest, I’m still struggling to keep it raised.

If you recall my first blog about surrendering, I informed you the definition was to give up or hand over (a person, right, or possession). It’s something we think belongs to us; perhaps in some sense, it does. But now the Creator of the universe, our Creator is asking us to give it to Him. More than a tangible person or possession, I realize the thing God wanted me to surrender to Him was control. Me trying to take matters into my own hands. Me snatching the pen out of His and telling Him how I'd like my story to be written.

If it were up to me, I would have written a very different story this past year. My son and I would be in our newly purchased home. I’d still have my black SUV. And on this cold winter night, I’d be next to my favorite person snuggled by the warmth of conversation and contained fire. As it is, I’m still living in my countryside Airbnb with intentions to move in just a couple of weeks. This move is another unforeseen mile marker - one in which I’ve had moments of reluctance in marching towards.

In early fall, it became evident to my little sister and me that the Lord was leading us to dwell together. Our bent towards independence and selfishness lent us to waver in saying yes. Though frustration and death to our flesh are inevitable realities we cringe at, we both surrendered to the greater good to be gained. Living together will be the protection and accountability our singleness needs to thrive. I believe many people struggle (well those who put forth the effort) in laying down their desires for relational connection and intimacy. And though it is possible to experience both healthily in singlehood, it takes oversight and temperance to maintain non-platonic relationships that honor God. In the place of romantic partnerships for which we both long, I think the Lord is giving us one another to enjoy instead. And in the process, He’ll use our inner messiness and strengths to help bring transformation and healing that’s needed in us both.

In the place of romantic partnerships for which we both long, I think the Lord is giving us one another to enjoy instead.

Along with an undesired living arrangement (I think this is probably time number three or four), I also had to surrender a person and everything that came along with him. For too many reasons to recount in a single blog, I had become especially fond of him. He had been my friend, and he had become my favorite person. He challenged my perspective, desires, and way in which I had come to see men and more see me. He helped me to be less critical, shelled, and afraid; and instead invited me to recover the trusting and courageous girl I once knew.

I am confident that God led me to him but am challenged that He seems to be leading me away – again. How many times would I have to surrender this man? And would this be the last – because he’s never coming back? I’m left with a litany of unknowns. Is it just the end of a chapter or is it the end of a book with no sequel? We fulfilled great purposes in each other’s lives but are they all now accomplished?

I was back in the same position I had been in with all of my things – writing down and trying to barter with God how and what could stay. I thought I would only have to surrender the weakness I carried; I had not imagined my entire friend and friendship. Our relationship had been a dance (offbeat because I can’t), where we danced off in battling opinions, formed a line with one of us always willing to follow, and like in salsa, we pulled and pushed each other away. I find myself humming Avant – and I wish I never met him at all… But I never settle there because I know I’m far better for having known him than not.

Surrender isn’t a word you'll find in the Bible – at least not in common translations. But we’re given plenty of pictures – Jesus being the most notable. The illustration God had given me at the beginning of my journey was of Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 22. Isaac had been a promise. I saw my fingertips reaching for all the things I believe God had promised me this past year. Some had only been in my vision but were never actualized. Others I grasped, but they were soon thrust from my hands unwillingly. This last was one I had the privilege to embrace but would have to choose to open my hands and give freely like Abraham had given Isaac. The morning I woke up with the epiphany that God wasn’t going to pry it from me, I realized that the best gift I could give my friend and me was the gift of letting go.

Through this process, I’ve learned that surrendering is not just one cataclysmic moment of having a knife raised to my hopes, dreams, and desires. But it is choosing day by day, sometimes hour by hour, and even moment by moment to surrender my will, even His promises, to Him. It is the awareness that as a living being with a living will, I can choose to remove my sacrifice from the altar at any second. But it is choosing to trust His voice that what’s there needs to be left in His careful hands - whether to consume it, or to leave it that it may continue to live, or to allow it to be placed in the fire to become something entirely new altogether. Letting go was me allowing God to determine what that should be.

Surrendering is not just one cataclysmic moment of having a knife raised to my hopes, dreams, and desires.

So as I enter 2022, I’m surrendering to a bunch of unknowns. But I am surrendering them to a God that knows. Instead of a period, comma, or semicolon, I’m choosing the blinking cursor. God can decide. I finally welcome this beautiful, ugly surrender.

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