Category: surrender

Stepping off that stage in May of 1998, diploma in hand proving that I was disciplined enough to earn a college degree, each year thereafter was already written on the pages on my mind. The diploma was only a pass through to get to what I really wanted – the typical girly fairy tale of weddings and babies and a home.

Little did I know that ten years later I would start to realize only the beginning of that story.

The years in between were confusing as I didn’t know who I was or who I was supposed to be. I knew who my heart said that I was, but my circumstances didn’t create that picture. So for ten  years I floundered trying to make my reality match my heart. I moved. I broke-up. I changed jobs. I fretted. And I cried. A lot.

Still the words I had written, the ones laying on the pages in my mind, were not what I saw each day. I could not believe this was my story. And looking around I could not believe all the people who had plagiarized it and made it theirs.

Determined to have my story published in the physical sense of flesh and blood I tried to make it come to life. But it never did. I began to wonder if it was even mine in the first place.

Skip ahead ten years and chapters of it started to unfold beginning with the new love and romance and wedding. Except there were parts inserted that still were not mine. Like the part that the man I walked down the aisle with had Cardiomyopathy and would one day have to have a heart transplant or die.

That part wasn’t mine. Nor was the part that children were not possible with such a weak heart. The story was being rewritten. It was nothing I could control. Slowly I began to give up the pen and watch instead of write. Watch as He read a story new to me, but one that was written in His mind long before mine was ever even formed.

Two years into marriage with this man who was dying the time came for life to take a turn. Either he would go and live in eternity or he would stay here with me. I had done my fair share of holding on and squeezing tight and pushing those words to the story I had written out into my life for years prior to this one. I was tired. So I let go.

I stated very firmly to the one who wanted so desperately to take my love from me, “Do what you wish. But to God be all of the glory, forever, and ever.” And I closed the book and bowed down surrendering and just watched.

Then it was there. The story that was mine. Not the one I had written, but the one He had written for me long ago. A story of surrender. A story of redemption. A story of grace.

As they wheeled him off to life support with no donor heart still to be delivered, I did not know what the next day would bring. But I knew it was a part of a bigger story, and as I let go the peace came. A supernatural peace that you would pass off as denial if you hadn’t experienced it yourself. But it was there.

To tell you the rest of the story, my love did receive a heart three short days later. He is alive and well today. And we will welcome our first child from those three hearts that made him or her in October.

It’s fascinating that living a good story is one that is not your own. But one from a will surrendered to Him – the One who has all of the stories already written and who is just waiting for us to quit writing and surrender.

Today I am answering the question, “What does it mean to live a good story?” along with other writers at Prodigal Magazine. I believe the answers are as broad as the stories that show us. Why don’t you share yours too?

 

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I turn on the T.V., and there’s enough prayer requests to last me for years. I open up Facebook, and there’s another half dozen. I run to the grocery store, and I see a few there, a few on the way back, and even a few more in the store. I think about the slaves all over the world, and there’s a couple more – thousands. I remember my Compassion child, her family, the hundreds of other children I met in Burkina Faso, West Africa, and know they need prayer too. Along with the rest of that whole entire continent. By this time I haven’t even gotten to my family yet. My husband. Our marriage. This baby inside of me. Some estranged relationships. A few other people who don’t know Jesus.

For this soul with a melancholic temperment, my heart begins to ache, and the weight of burden bears down on me like one of those lead vests they drape on you while taking x-rays at the dentist.

It seems almost blasphemy for me to admit that sometimes I just do not want to pray. Sometimes I dread prayer. Sometimes when I hear of someone or something else to pray for I feel burdened simply because I don’t have the time to remember one more pray request, and even if I did I don’t know if my heart could handle the possible combustion. It’s just too much.

It is extremely selfish for me to feel this way when there was a time in my life, not too long ago, when I was almost willing to set up a prayer booth outside of Duke University Hospital and pay people if they would pray for my dying husband. I knew their prayers mattered. I knew he and I needed prayer more than anything else. And now I know that the prayers of hundreds, some of which I don’t even know, saved his life.

What’s even more interesting is that most of my prayers are answered. My husband and I are constantly amazed at how we will pray for someone or something and then soon after there is such vivid evidence that God heard us. Typically the whole prayer is not answered immediately, but there are hints of movement. There is proof that God is there.

If I am honest with you, though, prayer doesn’t always come easy to me. I am embarrassed to say this, but it is my raw, truth self coming out. If I have a lot of time – like in the summer when I am home from work and have two hours to read and pray – I relish sitting at God’s feet and talking to Him. But these days are few and far between. More often it’s just five minutes here or three minutes there. Sometimes there’s no time to even sit.

Recently I have been thinking more and more about why prayer has become a burden for me. It leaves me feeling weighed down, guilty, and even hopeless. The list grows and grows as the world seems to keep falling. I know feeling burdened is not God’s intent for me. After all He said to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17), and I know He does not intend for me to be in a constant state of burden.

I have realized, though, that it is not the prayers, or the growing prayer list, that has made praying a burden. It is my response to them based on some temperament and personality qualities I carry around with me that have made them feel that way.

You see, like many women I, too, have that Martha gene of perfectionism where everything has to be done not only to God’s specifications, but mine too, which actually seem a lot more exhaustive than His. My prayer life is no different.

Instead of focusing on who God is calling me to pray for, I look at the long  list as a whole and feel defeated before I utter the first “Dear Lord”. Then I begin to analyze. How many days should I pray for this situation? Should I pray every day? And for how long should each prayer be? What if one prayer isn’t enough? How am I going to remember all of this? What if I tell someone I’ll pray for them and I forget? How will I find the time?

Prayer becomes a chore on my list instead of a prompting from the Holy Spirit.

I am learning to rest by trusting Romans 8: 26, “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.” God will lead me to who I need to pray for, when to pray for them, and when to stop. Praying is not something that He needs me to do. God is sovereign and in control. Prayer is just my recognition of that sovereignty. 

What is your prayer life like? Do you ever feel burdened by prayer or do you try to make it into a checklist of have-tos? I would love to hear your experiences in the comments!

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“For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven. A time to keep and a time to throw away.” Ecclesiastes 3:1, 6 (NLT)

Sometimes when a baby is expected people buy different types of books to record every new moment of the child’s life: a photo album, a book with fill-in-the-blanks for all baby’s firsts, and one for each of the years she spends in school. The intentions are good. To have a beautiful story to share one day of life during a time when she wasn’t even aware that it was happening yet.  But as days get busy these books fill up only one-third of the way full. The rest of the pages are left with gaps and places for the young girl to fill in for herself.

Not the baby books my mom bought.

My mom had a gift of capturing every moment of my childhood through pictures and stories and notes. Through keeping pictures that hung in my room. Clothes she made me. My favorite dolls. All of my Barbies. Every dance costume I ever wore. The afghans that she used to cover me. Every page is full with no room to spare.

Now they all sit in crates in my garage waiting to be opened and remembered, to be given life, again.

This past weekend I began preparing for this new bundle of baby that lives with us now in a condensed state, but is coming to live with us in all of his or her fullness in October. I opened those crates for the first time in ages to see what maybe I could now say good-bye to.

Looking down into each crate was like falling into the hole Alice fell into with dark, deep forests and a wonderland at the bottom.

My mind took me back to that living room I stood in with orangish shag carpet, barely two years old, holding that baby doll that was “my baby” since my brother had just come home to be my mom’s baby for a while. I lifted up that doll, now thirty-three years later, and as she looked into my eyes there was peace. I suspect the peace I felt then – my wonderland.

As I put her back down into the crate I picked up a jersey from my sorority days in college. Peace quickly left as I remembered that insecure, fearful, lonely girl who wore it. It was as if the longer I held it the more I transformed back into her – my dark, deep forest.

I stood there opening each crate feeling the intense need to make room for a new life, the life that lives in me now and the life that I am now living, with an equally intense pull to not let go. To let go might mean to deny that any of it holds a part of me. Tells my story. Where would it go from here?

Nostalgia grabbed hold of me and even told me that maybe I should feel guilty for wanting to simplify.

What if I miss seeing those baby dolls faces one day? What if my child asks me about the days from my past, and I don’t have those sorority jerseys to share with him or her? What would my mom say as she looks down from above?

There is much to be said for simplifying life. For not buying a bigger house just to keep more stuff. For being free from all the clutter that already surrounds our physical and our mental every day.

But there’s a time to hold on, too. A time to keep, to remind your future where your past has been.

I made some room in those old crates for some new memories to make a home. I said good-bye to some pieces of me that I was ready to let go of, that no longer serve me well.

The others I held onto a little tighter. Maybe one day their time will come too. But it wasn’t this weekend. Maybe the weekend in ten more years.

When you clean out items from your past, how do you feel? Is it easy? Do you feel guilty?

Share with us in the comments! We’d love to hear your thoughts. 

 

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An unusual opportunity presents itself in the online world that isn’t quite the same in real life. It’s the opportunity to sit behind these keys and punch them in a way that creates any picture I want to create. Any picture I want you to see. For the most part, you will never know if the picture I create is accurate or not because, after all, you will probably never be on this side of my keyboard.

But to create a picture of a puffed up reality existing on the other side of your screen would be more than dishonest. It would be a tragedy. Only through the pictures of my true reality does grace shine through. And the healing begins.

So today I tell you the real behind (in)RL, the conference I hosted in my home this past weekend. I hope it doesn’t disappoint you that there’s more to the story than daisies and gifts and cupcakes and smiles.

(In)RL came to my door bearing it’s name full-on. It was real. It was risky. It was messy.

I prepared all day the Friday before. Morning ’til night I prepared. You know what it’s like hosting anything in your home. No matter how small, it is always effort. Not bad effort, just effort.

So that day I cleaned and baked and cooked. I decorated and printed discussion questions and made name tags.

Then the Real began to set in with each text and email I began to receive. I was expecting 10 of my friends in all – only two that I had never met. The messages that day were not of prayers or excitement or encouragement. No, they were to tell me that only four would end up coming the next day.

My community cancelled the day before. Yes, after sending an RSVP weeks before, they cancelled. And these were my in-real-life friends.

I cried.

Exhausted and burned out, now with tons of food and only utter disappointment there to eat it all, I cried.

I told myself over and over, “It’s not about you, Brenda. It’s about Him and who He wants here”, and I wanted to believe it. But I was hurt.

That Saturday afternoon my four guests and I sat in my living room and watched the webcasts where other women shared their thoughts on community – risky, messy, complicated, sometimes hurtful, and full of forgiveness – community. Stephanie from Squee, Inc. said that she sometimes didn’t like community. I sometimes didn’t like community either.

The more I listened I began to see a bigger purpose than the six friends who stood-me-up that afternoon. See, I committed to hosting (in)RL way back in November. When I committed, God was already in my living room this past Saturday. Those women that were there? They were already there, too, in His mind. He knew who He wanted to be there. And He knew who He didn’t.

Community wasn’t about me that day. It was about those who I was serving – each cupcake frosted, each strawberry cut, and each ingredient added – was meant to serve those who were there. They were my guests of honor.

Yes, community can be messy. And community can be hurtful. But sometimes we are just called to serve one another anyway. Take the risk. Shed the tear. Forgive. Dive in anyway. The blessing is waiting. All we have to do is say yes.

What is your reality of community? Please share with us in the comments.

 

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Last week I wrote a post, Are You Praying to Be Used Big?, about a time as a single woman when I finally gave up, turned in my reins, and surrendered my future to God. Then I asked Him to use me for something big. I know my request came from a place of just pouring my future into God’s hands and not wanting anything to inhibit His work in my life. It was a request to show my palms out, facing up, fully open to whatever. Even if “whatever” meant that I break to get there.

After I wrote this post a woman commented very thoughtfully, and I could not get her comment out of my mind. For days last week I read and reread it, mulling over every word. She wrote:

“I think most people (myself included) need to learn how to trust God in the small things before we have faith for the big things.  We know the basics: ‘He has shown you, O man, what is good.  And was does the Lord require of you? But to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.’ (Micah 6:8)  But we want to move past the basics and know all the big ways to work for God.  But, see, God doesn’t need us.  God could raise stones up to serve Him.  I get caught up in the ‘I want to do something BIG for you today, God’ trap, and I forget that I can’t do anything for God.  God doesn’t need me, but He loves and wants me–that’s better than being needed.  Seeking the Lord first, finding fulfillment in Him, trusting Him with the little things–that’s what most people need to focus on.  When we’re faithful with little, He is faithful to give us more.”

Six years ago, sitting in that one bedroom apartment, I truthfully prayed that God would use me big. And my post last week was a truthful account of the events that occurred only three years later.

But what I may have missed is that none of it had anything to do with me or my prayers. As I read this reader’s comment above my heart was humbled. I don’t know if in the other post I gave God all of the credit – all of it – from the prayer, to giving me the ability to even ask the prayer, to making me ready to receive the answer.

“God doesn’t need us. He could raise stones up to serve Him.”  This is so true, and God didn’t need me. I just wanted to be free from anything that might make it to where I was not usable. I wanted to be faithful in whatever, even pain, because for years I had not. I had kicked and screamed and fought and demanded and manipulated. I was determined to get exactly what I wanted. Then I realized that maybe, just maybe, I was missing out on all that God wanted to do with me and through me. No longer did I want to be in that place. I did not want my own defiance to keep me from anything God had for me – whether to change me or to use me.

I want to continue to ask big, bold prayers from God because He is a big, bold God, and He can handle them. I want to ask for miracles and healing and all the impossible that my mind can’t wrap around.

But instead of asking to be used big, maybe I should instead ask for help in being faithful – faithful in all of it – in the big, in the small, and even in the nothing. God doesn’t need me, but I don’t want my unfaithfulness to be the reason He doesn’t use me. I want to be a poured out vessel for anything He chooses.

And one last thought – It’s all big to God. A smile to the elderly woman who carries her groceries to her car alone is just as big as getting on a stage and speaking to thousands of people. Because, after all, doesn’t it all come from the same Holy Spirit, the same God, who equips us to be able to “act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly”?

My prayer is to be faithful in the whatever and to be used however He wants to use me because in His eyes it’s all being used for something big, something glorious, that none of us can even comprehend.

Thank you, dear reader, for your comment. Thank you for giving me something to think about. That is the purpose of community.

What do you think about these thoughts and the reader’s comments? Please share with us. We learn so much from each other. 

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