Every year I pray for a word for the year in my life. This year I was given the word - SURRENDER.
I wasn't at all surprised because I feel like the act of surrendering is something God has been having me work on for a while now except the mantra that was more familiar to me is "let it go."
For someone who has always tried to control as much as I can in my life, the very thought of surrender is not only foreign, but is incredibly difficult & scary to embrace. Until I learned it wasn't. For those of you who can resonate with wanting to "control everything", I'm about to share with you something you're not going to like. You'll probably think I'm crazy. You'll think I'm lying. What I've discovered is that nothing, absolutely nothing, in this world is in our control. For some, that news may be a relief to hear. For others, you might think, like I used to, that that is simply not true.
Has there ever been a time when you tried to control the outcome of a certain situation or experience, and it did not turn out anything like you'd expected? That's because you're not in control. Did you plan a dream vacation and everything that could go wrong, did go wrong? Or conversely, things turned out surprisingly better than you could have hoped for? That's because you're not in control. Life is going to be what it's going to be. Nothing in life happens to us. Life just happens and life continues to go on regardless of our circumstances.
So, tangibly, what does surrender look like for me? It's already March and we are heading toward the end of the first quarter of 2024 and what surrender has looked like in my life so far is this:
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Not working 12 hours a day to try & "make something happen." All it’s done is stress me out and make me and everyone around me miserable. Working harder is not going to make things happen, however, working smarter and working on improving myself ensures that when things do happen, I'm well prepared. That's surrender.
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Being an observer of all that happens to me in life and allowing and accepting those things, those feelings, those experiences, to pass by, good, bad or indifferent.Choosing happiness, regardless of the circumstance or the outcome, is surrender.
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Knowing it’s enough to do my best in every situation - as a wife, a mother, a friend, a daughter, a colleague, a relative - and not being attached to the outcome of how others perceive me, is surrender.
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In my line of work, I'm compensated when people choose to work with me. I can't (and won't) convince or force people to work with me. I'm either someone they like and trust or I'm not. That's surrender.
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Being present. I mean, really, truly, being present every moment of the day - appreciating God's creation that is all around us, being fully engaged in every interaction that I'm a part of - realizing that every moment of life is a gift and every moment I experience is an experience that will never happen again, and I choose to be present for it - that is surrender.
Surrender to me ultimately means trusting God for His continued provision in my life and His plan. That doesn't mean I stand idly by and wait for God to provide for me. I do my part, surrendering that the actions I take every day are part of His plan and, if they're not, surrendering that He will direct my steps.
There are over 9 more months left in the year and I look forward to all of the ways God is going to show me and teach me about what it means to live a life of surrender.
