photo credit: Veronica Matthews

I sat down this morning to write this post and honestly, I feel like I didn’t know which direction to turn.  I have about 10 posts floating around in my head, from things about the open wound of abandoment, to the constant struggles as a single mom, to the hurt of watching your children hurt, your friends hurt, your family struggle.  Anger that never seems to fully go away, financial strain and stress, insurmountable debt that I can never see the bottom of, fear that I am going to fail, fear I can’t take care of my kids well enough, and the list goes on and on and on.

Then as I sat down to write, and I had some worship music playing in the background.  The song “Everything and Nothing Less“ by Jesus Culture ft Chris McClarney was on. (you can listen by clicking on the song title) As the words “I surrender all” were being sung, it really hit me, like the Lord saying to me, Kristen, surrender it ALL!  All the hurt, all the pain, all the fear, all the anger, all the worry,  all the doubt, your kids, your house, your money, every wound that still bleeds, give it ALL entirely to me.

The word surrender has so many negative connotations, but when I googled the definition, one that came up said “..to abandon oneself entirely”  As terrifying as that sounded, it also sounded wonderful when I think of WHO I am andonding myself to!

I surrender all doesn’t just mean, ok God, I am going to give you my sins, or God I am going to try harder, it is knowing that there is nothing we can do apart from Him, God I can’t deal with all thats going on, I can’t make my hurt go away, I can’t work hard enough, I can’t fix my kids, my friends, my family, I can’t support my family, I can’t be enough….but Lord, You Are!  You are more than enough, you are everything, you own everything, you see everything and you love me, you love my family, you love my friends.  You have ALWAYS been there for me, every step of the way, even when I turn away, even when I get angry, even when I lose my way, Lord you are there!  You know every part of my story.  You have carefully planned every step I will take.

So rather than write a post about all the things I can’t deal with right now, I decided to write about doing the only thing I can do….surrender, surrender all of it, every part.  Abandon myself entirely.  When I think of doing that, I see myself standing in an open field, or on a hike among the trees or on a mountain top.  I see my arms outstretched to heaven and I think of Psalm 46:10

“BE STILL, and KNOW that I AM GOD…I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth”