Surrender
Surrender – To yield (something) to the possession or power of another.
Am I meant to hold the entirety of my life in my own hands, pursuing success of self and obtaining all I desire? How does ‘surrender’ work into my everyday life and why does it matter?
I’m reading a book about childbirth at the moment called Birth Skills. Positive birth testimonials, diagrams of dilation, pain coping techniques, and labour strategies and positions fill the pages. It was gifted to me by one of my husband’s colleagues.
I haphazardly flipped open the 20 year old book, sifting through the pages and old photos. Now I’m 116 pages in and feeling well equipped for labour; and I have learnt a lot about surrender.
Most of the techniques for labour involve breathing, surrendering to what your body is created to do, allowing the cervix to dilate and the baby to move through the birth canal. If I chose to hold fear, tension and frustration, adrenaline would rise and labour would fail to progress smoothly. Almost all labour techniques involve surrendering to the powerful force moving through my body and allowing the waves of contractions bringing the baby down.
It made me think of trials I’ve faced. Controlling a season of life, I thought, would help me control the outcome and the situation.
And yet, letting go of my grip on circumstances was what was needed most for things to progress.
In labour, a deep surrendering happens with each contraction as the baby moves down the birth canal. During hours of surrender and pressure, there is beauty at the end of it all. My heart pounds at this idea; what if I am tightly holding onto expectations in life where instead I could be deeply surrendering and being delivered into God’s best plans for my life?
Here’s another metaphor. In winter, I feel the barrenness of the peach tree resting in my front garden, the rigid branches bearing no leaves and the wrinkled leaves from last season scattered on the ground. And yet, a breathtaking miracle unfolds: Beneath the soil, the roots are nourished and grown, preparing the tree blossoming in spring and the growing peaches for summer.
Surrendered expectations lead us closer to God because He is in control of everything good and beautiful. In turn, we are freed from fear and anxiety about the future because we know who holds it. Sometimes the good is hidden under the soil. Often birthing pains are not understood by human eyes, yet they are moving an opening and bringing life forth.
In all of life, surrendering often looks like releasing something that was good but is no longer serving us, others or God. Not every good thing is for every good season.
I release control, trusting that the branches that bore beautiful fruit also have seasons of barrenness where the soil is nourished and the leaves do not flourish. I release control, surrendering friendships, homes and finances, knowing that these things change but God never does. Something ‘good’ in your early 20s may not be ‘good’ anymore in your early 30s, 40s, 50s. The goodness of a season or a gift is not dependant on our circumstances but on God. He bestows blessings on us, and He is our shepherd and we are His sheep.
And yet often I feel my soul resisting surrender, resisting opening my tightly-held materialistic grasp which has worked toward obtaining an outcome. The phrase rings in my mind –
Stop clenching and controlling, release your fear to God. Surrender to Him.
There are so many things in life to control but what if we handed all these over to God and let Him work through them?
When you or I are stuck in between seasons, wondering what is going to happen next, and others question what you are doing, surrender to God and pray:
I surrender my expectations
I surrender my finances
I surrender my relationships
I surrender my idea of success
I surrender my home
I surrender my life
all to you God, maker of heaven and earth.
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A reader, Grace, thoughtfully shared this poem last week by Strahan Coleman. It couldn’t have come at a better time as I was thinking about and writing about surrender.
Bless you, friends!
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