All or Nothing

I laid down to fall asleep around 3 a.m. Wednesday morning.  As I was reaching to turn my light off, I began to feel that familiar internal restlessness I've felt so often during the nights of these past few months.  I sighed, knowing it was going to take a while for me to fall asleep.  Because that is always the result when it comes to  this type of thing.

I did, however, make it a point to call on Jesus as I laid down, getting in a comfortable enough position to try to fall asleep in.  More and more often these days, while it's not been easy to say an actual prayer, I am able to whisper "Jesus, help."  And because He is faithful to the end, that is usually enough.

I once again uttered these words.  But that disquiet, that internal restlessness, was stronger than usual.  And, as usual, I didn't know why this was happening.

Instead of trying to force myself to fall asleep, I began to think about different things.  Letting my thoughts ebb and flow as they willed.  I did not want to force them to go a certain way, for that would have certainly kept me up longer than I was already anticipating.

It wasn't long into this process, that I began to think about a conversation that I had started with a friend via communication over the interwebs.  In one part of my reply to this individual, I spoke about surrender.  Something that was once so familiar to me.

There was a time in my life...right as I was beginning to follow God's will for the first time in my life, actually...that was completely and totally focused on surrender.  The spark, if you will, that was the first act of surrender in my life, was to give up the things that I had clung to for so long.  Things that, while I did not necessarily use them, were my security blankets and accompanied me to all places.  The razor blades that I used to cut myself with.

From there, surrender overwhelmed my life like a wildfire.  I began to surrender my life completely over to Jesus.  Trusting Him to handle things in His time, in the manner in which He saw fit, to provide a large amount of funds for me to attend the Discipleship Training School that He was calling me to attend.  Of course, through a series of incredible occurrences that were obviously controlled by God, the funds were supplied, and I was able to take part in something that changed my life dramatically.  (That, dear readers, is another story for another time.)

However, despite God providing what I needed, that didn't mean I stopped the act of surrender.  For surrender is something that should be in our lives for as long as we live.  The big things and the little thing.  And I was slowly learning to make surrender a habit.

On a daily basis - usually in the morning - I would pray and surrender things to God.  I know I didn't have to go through the verbal act of praying them, so long as in my heart and spirit I was sincere in my surrender.  I prayed these thing out loud, more for my benefit.  To remind myself that these things were placed in God's hands.

Usually I would pray something to the effect of "I surrender my life to You.  I surrender my thoughts, my words, my actions, my heart, my emotions.  Help me to place these things in Your hands and not take them back into my own."

It's been a long time since I've made myself mentally aware to surrender my life to God.  And I realised that, when thinking about this conversation.  I mean, I have known that I haven't been surrendering things to God. That there have been many things that I've taken into my own hands, tried to fix and mend on my own, without the help of others, or help from my Father.

So as I laid there in the early morning hours, struggling with the restlessness, I faced my only option.  The option that I should have faced from the very start.  The one that I should have never given up.  Surrender.

I began to pray, asking Him for help.  Thinking about the pains and heartaches that I've felt so often these past nine months.  Trying to fix them, deal with them on my own.  Failing and letting depression slide back in to my life, and not fighting it, because in the midst of heartbreak and unfamiliar emotions, I needed and wanted something near me that was so familiar.  And then letting it get to far, and not knowing how to break myself free from it.

So I gave it all up.  I surrendered it all back to Him.  The pain, the anger, the grief.  My weaknesses, my pride, my inability to do anything without Him.  Memories, loss, a broken heart.

There's still a lot that needs mending.  And much time for healing to take place.  As well as constantly reminding myself that I need to surrender things to Him.  No matter how much I want to hold on.

It's either all...or nothing.