As I sit here and begin to compose my thoughts, I am surrounded by post-its filled with scribbles and thoughts and my iPad is open to the random assortment of notes that I have been jotting down over the last few weeks.  My heart has been as fragmented as the pieces which now compose this very page and it seems fitting that someone as organized as me would need utter chaos to find rest.  My soul has been buried in a hole filled with darkness, one so deep that there were days when I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to pull myself out of it.  That is scary and hard to admit, but it is true.  I don't want to pretend that I'm okay anymore.  I'm not writing this blog to announce to the world that things are magically better and I was able to pull myself out of the darkness by remembering my blessings.  I didn't pull myself out of it...and that is the whole point.

I started to read the book, "Restless," by Jennie Allen as one of my last attempts to "feel better" and connect to the promises of scripture which felt so far away.  She gave words to what I was feeling.  I was being strangled by all of the loose threads in my life.  Whether good or bad, each thread was meant to "bind together and become [my] unique, God-given contribution to a world in great need" (Allen) but they were strangling every little last drop of life in me.  My loose threads include: anxiety, compassion, insecurity, education, infertility, a broken family, organization, fear, failure.  The threads were strangling every dream that I have ever had for myself and every dream that I have ever had for my life with Michael.  My loose threads were causing me to fail at everything that I ever wanted for myself and for those whom I love.  This catapulted me into a dark place so far away from hope and made me feel incapable of joy.

I kept telling myself to feel hope...I tried to will it into my heart.  I listened to songs and read scripture...trying to physically force the hope into my soul, but nothing would work.  My head knew the truth that, "our souls were made to find their home in God with God's purposes for our life" (Allen), but I didn't want to surrender to that.  I didn't want to entertain the idea that God's purpose for my life might be different than what I had planned.  I kept thinking that if I offered up the illusion to the world that I was surrendering my future, that eventually God would give me the life that I wanted.    But God could see through my cliches and false words.  God knew that my heart was not willing to surrender the one thing that I wanted more than anything else.

 A few weeks ago the struggle turned to anger.  I finally began to realize that my false obedience and outward illusions of hope were not and would never earn me anything and that sometimes God says, "No."  My heart was divided.  I wanted to serve the creator of the universe, but not at the expense of my dreams.  God gets to be God whether I like it or not, but I wanted to be the author of my dreams.  I was willing to surrender to Him, AFTER he built the future that I wanted.  That is not the way to live in surrender.  Death brings life.  

"God does not sign off on our dreams.  He is the builder of our dreams" (Allen).  He will be the one to take my loose threads into something with purpose and something that is strong.  My attempt to weave it into the future that I wanted was leaving me suffocated and angry.  I did not want to go through life that way.  I knew that it was time to truly, wholly, and genuinely abandon my dreams for the story that he was creating in me, the story that He has ALWAYS planned for me.  I knew that it was time to move forward in obedience, even if I couldn't pick myself up off of the floor.

This hurt even more than the realization that He was saying, "No."  Each act of obedience felt like a small death (Allen).  Yet, it is in death that I have life.  "No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other" (Luke 16:13).  My heart was divided...and it was breaking under the strain...and it was taking me further and further from my God, my husband, and everyone else in my life.  The moment that I accepted that "No" could be the very thing that would remove my pain rather than cause it, I was finally willing to surrender.

Surrender...the word takes my breath away and it leaves me broken in a way that I don't want.  However, I know that my surrender means that I am finally willing to give up my version of my life for the life in which I can be used to reach a broken world.  I created my dreams BEFORE I surrendered.  "It's a terrifying thing.  But it is essential before we begin.  We were bought with an enormous price, and it is not longer we who live, but Christ lives in us.  So, if we don't surrender, we inevitably dream with vanity, with ego, with control" (Allen). Somehow, as I have let go of the control that I so desperately wanted, God picked me up and out of that hole.  I'm still laying on the ground barely able to move but I know that I will not only stand, but I will run.  When that day comes I will be able to, "figure out what it means to run after God.  Throw off what is holding [me] back.  [And] find and live [my] part in His story" (Allen).  Slowly, I can feel the threads beginning to loosen from around my neck and form into something.  His death is bringing me back to life...not a life that longs for my dreams here on earth...but a life that would realize the urgency of sharing the life that we can have in Christ for ETERNITY.

"We surrender to a God who surrendered EVERYTHING for us" (Allen).   This is just part I in my story of surrender...it will continue as I start running...


https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/restless/id666902168?mt=11 
Download Jennie Allen's Book "Restless" using this link.