Constant State Of Surrender...

Surrender is my word. It's been my word for a few months now as I've felt God continuously prompting me that I needed to surrender many things to His control.

It began with my house...

"Lord, I love this house but it's not my house - it's yours. If you no longer want us to be in this house then I give it to you. I surrender."

Then it was our town...

"Lord, this town is the place where all my children have been born. I love the weather, the people, the stores, the flowers. But, this town may not be where you want me to remain forever and so I give it back to you Lord....it's not mine to hold onto."

Next came our friends...this was a really rough one:

"Lord, my friends have become our family here. We have shared highs and lows and everything in between with them. We have laughed our heads off with them and we have cried our eyes out with them. They know everything there is to know about us and yet they STILL love us. But, Lord, my friends were given to me by You. They are your people - not mine...I surrender my friends to you Lord."

And so, this has been the state of my life for the past few months as God has weeded through all that He needed to weed out in order to prepare me to take this next step into a very difficult and "unpleasant" area of the world.

Some days are better than others. Some days I feel God's peace more strongly. Some days I just wish I could close my eyes and life would go back to complete normalcy with a job, a paycheck and sweet magnolias on the trees.

But, alas, that is not God's will for us any longer. He has called us out and I continue to surrender daily to His calling over our lives.

It's not easy and I have plenty of moments when I wish I could see the future that He has set forth for us; but then I am reminded of all the joy I have experienced as I've learned to say "I surrender."

And so Lord, again I say it... "I surrender."

I surrender to this new direction...I surrender to this new life...I surrender to your plan to financially care for us...I surrender to your plan to house us....I surrender my family to you...I surrender my dreams to you. Lord, I surrender because I know that ultimately, it is in the 'surrender' that we feel the sweet peace of freedom.

I surrender.