“Sheesh, It’s been a while”… I feel like saying that any time I start writing again. Moving to another state has stretched me in a way that I never saw coming. For many years, I thought I would love to be a missionary and God has shown me just how tightly I hold onto places and the security I put in it. I had no idea how much emphasis I put on my home, neighborhood, the people, the church and so much more. Taking me away from the place I loved so very much has tested me in ways I didn’t know I needed to be tested. I hope to share more of my heart in all of this in the future, but am still working through a lot of it with God. As I process through this huge change in our lives, God continually brings me back to surrender and submission. Surrender and submission to His plans and His ways. Do I trust him, even when it’s not what I want? That’s what I keep going back to when I start panicking. I wish I could say that I’ve made this new transition gracefully, but to be honest, I’ve been hanging on by a thread. But God, right?

So here’s my raw, unedited and not beautifully eloquent overflow of my heart from my time with God today…

Submission is hard. Submission goes against every natural desire I’ve learned since I was a child. As a child, when your parents are fighting and yelling, you learn to go somewhere else. You create a safe environment for yourself and control what you can control. You can’t stop the fight, but you can change your position in it. I never realized how very tightly I gripped every single area of my life. The older I got, the more control I grasped. Control feels safe. Control feels familiar. Control feels natural.

Yet– if you’ve walked with God for any amount of time now, you also know control becomes its own “god”. If you aren’t careful, control will slowly start controlling every part of you. This once ‘coping mechanism’ has now fired every single flight or fight signals in your body and is now hurting you.

What you once used to make yourself feel safe, now sends your body into high alert and breaks you down piece by piece. What deception. The enemy uses pain to birth control, which then breeds stress, anxiety, depression, and isolation. Control, which was once a friend, has now betrayed you and instead is breaking every part of you.

But the Peace of God. The peace that surpasses it all. The peace of God, but we must surrender it all. His peace, my surrender. His plan, my submission.

We’ve all been lied to by society- which has made us think submission is weak, submission is small. Yet in our submission, he makes our paths straight. In submission, we show our humility and in our humility, he lifts us up.

Control has felt safe for all these years, yet little by little, it’s been breaking me down. So I willingly submit. I willingly surrender. For when I surrender, I practice trust. When I surrender, Jesus shows me His love. In submission, we carry our cross, laying our lives down for the One who died for us. So here’s to another day, here’s to another surrender. I give you my life. I give you my plans- for when I do that, I feel you grab my hand.

I lay it at the cross.
My home. My safe place. My control. My plans.
I pick up my cross and am guided by your merciful hand.
I trust you, Jesus, with all my heart. Here at the altar, giving you my life.
I choose to submit.
I choose to surrender.
To the One who willingly gave His life, for me, the perfect sacrifice.
Thank you, Jesus.