surrendering...

surrender.... we use the word so often, that one could be forgiven for thinking that it is easy. and then i find that it is not...

and although i love God with all of my heart, i find that i still doubt, still try and hold on, still try and figure it out, still try and adjust and control in some sort of way, even if it is just to keep on praying and feeling a bit frantic, and that my actions and my prayers might somehow persuade God to answer...

and time and again, i fall on my face, i bleed, i cry, i wish things were different, i rebel at what doesn't seem fair or right, i worry, and i sometimes even resent not being able to change things around me.

and it's then, when at last i actually just feel like dying, crawling into a corner and never waking up, that God's gentle Spirit whispers into my secret place, there where just Him and I can go... deep down inside I become aware of this: "Surrender".

surrender your heartaches and your battles and your fears and your doubts and your human thoughts and your cries and your needs, because I say "I am the Way". "I am the Jesus that resurrected people from the dead, I am the Jesus that cried with Mary and Martha about Lazarus, I am the Jesus that calmed the storm." "I am the Father that says cast all your anxiety upon Me, because I care for you, I am the God that has good plans for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you." "Even if a mother could forget her only child, I have not forgotten you, I have your name (and his) engraved in the palm of my hand."

"I have loved your with an everlasting love, I have bought you with the blood of my Son." "I will never leave you nor forsake you".

And in that quiet whisper, i know that i am home and nothing i can ever do will change things, but God can. And it's then that i surrender...