Surrender is a verb

Delight yourself in the LORD, and He will give you the desires of your heart. (Psalm 37:4)

On March 12, 2023, David and I became husband and wife in a ceremony I never would have thought possible. I, the outcast, super-nerd, last one to ever get picked for the team, had somehow become the one that a handsome, intelligent, talented man would choose to spend the rest of his life with. That thought still astounds me.

More than that, I remain in awe and gratitude that God chose David and me for each other before we were born.  While the paths we traveled in life were often troublesome, they were what our Heavenly Father ordained for us. We needed to learn, adjust, and trust that His way is better than our way. We needed to learn and relearn full surrender. We needed to put God first before seeking our own ways.

So often in life, we think we know what’s best. We plan without praying, we pursue and plunge without full consideration of the consequences. And then we wonder why we fail.

Isaiah 55: 8-9 tells us, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Plenty of people succeed without God, that’s true, but how shallow are their victories? How empty are their pursuits? God’s plans for us are so much greater than anything we could ever come up with ourselves. I’ve learned that lesson the hard way – and then some.

In my case, I was so desperate for love and acceptance that I foolishly believed it would come from someone who didn’t know how to put God first. How wrong I was. Without God’s love surrounding our lives, without the understanding that we must serve and surrender our will to His, everything we achieve on our own is shallow and flawed.

I had a million reasons why I couldn’t travel to Florida to help Samaritan’s Purse in October 2022. I didn’t have a pet-sitter. I didn’t have vacation time. I didn’t know the first thing about construction, and I’m awkward in social situations. How could I serve in this capacity when I was so insignificant?

Still, I surrendered.

God, if you want me there, I remember praying, you’re going to have to open the doors.

And that’s exactly what He did.

I found a pet-sitter. I learned that my employer offered paid vacation time. On my first night at the Ft Myers church that housed the Samaritan’s Purse (SP) volunteers, I was joined at the dinner table by a church group that immediately made me feel welcome.

Still, the surrender continued. It was on my third day volunteering when I surrendered to that group’s request to join their team that I met David.

It was in surrendering half of my lunch to David the first day that he arrived that he saw my heart.

It was only after I had surrendered more time to stay in Ft Myers beyond my original departure date that I heard David’s testimony.

In surrendering my thoughts to God’s, I was prompted to ask two of the homeowners if they’d thought about tearing down a wall in their kitchen. Doing so prompted me to ask David if such a thing was possible.  It was only then that David told the homeowners that not only could they tear down the wall, but he would do so for them – and then rebuild their entire home.

This new promise to rebuild prompted David to ask me to help. Of course, this time, I couldn’t help but surrender to the request.

On December 11, one day shy of the two months I’d known David, he asked me to marry him – in the house he was rebuilding, on the morning after I’d finally surrendered and driven back to Florida to deliver the help I’d promised to give.

The act of surrender isn’t a noun. It’s a verb. It requires continual action, perpetual reinforcement, and consistent affirmation. I, more than anyone, know how valuable surrender to God can be.

Psalm 37:4 tells us to “Delight yourself in the LORD, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” Surrender to God is a delight. He knows more than we do what is best for us. His plans are better than anything we can come up with on our own.

I stand here today, a surrendered woman, blessed beyond measure by a God that I can never outgive.

March 12 isn’t just my wedding anniversary; it’s a celebration of how gracious our God is, and it’s a day that allows me to continually testify to the gracious, unending, unparalleled power of surrender.

Thank you, Jesus, for teaching me the incredible power of surrender. May I never cease to sing Your praises, and may I never stop surrendering to You.