A Bitter Sweet Surrender

I feel stuck.  Like I can’t pluck myself up from here, and that the only way I am going to get out is by the arm of God reaching in and pulling me out.

Stuck in a past time and trauma that rocks my soul so much I can physically feel the stress of this lack of space. An inner storm rages that threatens to overtake me.  I lean in and pray to God like Princess Leia speaking to R2-D2.  Help me God, You are my only hope!

I know He is with me.  Not because I feel Him, mind you, but because of the way my path has been lit up with circumstances and His word.  I am walking by faith alone, but I am not alone.  I know His presence because of the little things that fill my day with remembrance of Him.

Like going to the coffee shop and getting my first ever Salted Carmel Mocha.  Taking that first sip that seemed to kick the chill in my bones out the door on a day it isn’t really cold outside.  It is sweet with a bitter kick like my life as His daughter right now.

³⁵ Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. ³⁶ “Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” Mark 14:35-36 NIV

I cry on the way to the therapists office.  I swallow the lump in my throat.  I try to keep it together while I wait to be seen.  Once I enter the room I tell her of my grief.  Of my stuck-mess.  She says, “I think it is time for another E.M.D.R. session.  The only way to renewal of the mind for me.

God, I whisper, okay, but you know that is not what I want to do, but on the way there I had whispered to Him.  I surrender.  So E.M.D.R. here I come. (Read about this special form of trauma therapy here.) Besides I have heard Him calling to me like Job to return for healing.  Storm tossed out of the boat and now beaten by salty surf I find I am barely able to breathe.  Again over the roar of the waves I yell inside, I surrender.  I don’t have any desire to get swallowed up by a whale, nor face digestion for three days, so I surrender.

I leave the therapists office feeling like I had returned to the path I was supposed to be on, and remembered I was having problems with my smartphone’s memory.  So I pull into the wireless place and the clerk tells me that the phone I have is known to have memory problems.  They don’t even make it anymore.  So I will have to get a new one.  A new commitment for better memory.

Like my phone I am having memory problems.  Moments from my childhood and my teenage years are holding me prisoner, and as much as I would like to let go I am stuck there.  I am a grown woman experiencing sorrow and grief, and anger and pain from what started over thirty years ago.  It affects my daily life and my relationships, and I want to be free.

I thought I had reached the bottom layer, but apparently there were layers I knew not of.  Sometimes healing can be a roller coaster ride that seems to come to a stop and then starts again spontaneously.  Maybe more like a log flume that plunges deep, ends with a refreshing splash that can leave you drenched, and then tosses you in the boat for a while.  So I sip my mocha, and I say a another prayer.  Lord not my will, but Yours. I surrender.  I buckle myself in with Truth and prepare for the ride.

I make the appointment for the following week, and decide that since He has saved me from the stormy waters that it’s time to lie down in the boat with Jesus, and the Word.  He has promised we are going to the other side, and I’m used to Him having to rebuke the winds and the waves in my life.  As I lie down, I whisper, peace be still, because I’ve learned that my Savior doesn’t sleep or slumber any longer.  All my hope in Him all the day long.

What is calling you to surrender.  Anywhere we have yet to surrender to Him is somewhere we have yet to relinquish for Him to reign in our life.  We have to dethrone ourselves or face being dethroned.  I pray that if you are stormed tossed you will cry out to the One who can bring you peace.  That if the cup you have to drink is bitter-sweet you can lift it up to the One who drank the cup for you.

Heavenly Father,

Only you can deliver us from what we are facing.  Only you can make us brave enough to dismount the throne and place You on it by surrendering our will to yours.  As we lift up our hands please meet us here.  We believe that you are the only way we will make it safely to the other side of what stands before us.  Thank you that you have overcome and because we are your children we are over comers.  Thank you for being the anchor of our souls. We surrender again today, and again tomorrow.  We want you to take this cup from us, yet not our will Lord, but what you will.

In Jesus name, Amen.

❤ Melinda