Surrender! Surrender? You want me to do what? The girl who likes to be in charge of everything around her has to surrender? Like that’s gonna happen…
What does surrendering my life mean? My example involves a little girl, lots of barrettes, my long hair, and her dad. To set the scene, I dislike having people touch my hair. I panic. I straightened my hair before babysitting Trina, and several times during the day she enjoyed running her fingers through my usually curly hair. After dinner when her dad was cleaning up the kitchen, Trina decided that she needed to put barrettes in my hair to get me ready for our pretend party. Going along with her game, she put about 20 brightly colored plastic barrettes in my hair. I looked in the mirror and played around with it for a little while before I kindly asked if we could take them out. I sat on the floor and she stood behind me attempting to get them out. Most of them were too tight for her little fingers to unclasp, and I couldn’t get them out either. Her dad noticed what was happening and came to the rescue. He sat behind me and removed the hair clips carefully and slowly so he didn’t pull my hair. Since a three year old put the barrettes in, many of them were tangled in knots of hair. He meticulously took each one out. Surrender. What else could I do?
Surrendering involves some amount of trust or hopelessness. Or both. I had no hope of getting all the clips out by myself. I also had a lot of trust and love for the person taking them out. Instead of trying to fight him, I sat quietly on the floor with Trina’s bright pink pillow clutched tightly to my chest. The nervousness I was feeling wasn’t coming from the person taking the barrettes out of my hair, but from the realization that I had surrendered without a second thought.
What would have happened if I hadn't accepted the help? It would have been painful and frustrating. And, in the end, I probably would have still needed help.
Although surrendering my life no longer involves sitting on the floor getting barrettes extracted from my hair, it means letting God have control of my life. He’s the one sitting with me gently taking the clips out of my messy life.
I’m still working on handing my life over to God – it’s a battle I fight daily. Some days I have victory and am able to hand over a white flag; other days the battle is messy and my white flag of surrender looks a little tie dyed.
“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” Luke 9:23
Surrender.
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