Learning how to surrender.

I bend toward nostalgia approximately two times per year — my birthday and the new year. So the fact that we’re heading into a new year and a new DECADE has me all up in my old journals and feelings, as you know.

It was very obviously a big year for Aaron and I as we moved back across the ocean and welcomed our son over the summer. But when I started this year, watching the calendar flip from 2018 to 2019, I didn’t have a single inkling that the year would be any different than the last. Aaron and I had no plans to move home and I wasn’t aware yet of my pregnancy. It was business as usual over on the island. And as 2018 drew to a close, I chose my word for the year as I normally do. For 2019: surrender. After my miscarriage last year, I learned again (and again and again) that I have no control over most circumstances in life so in 2019 I intended to make a habit of laying it all down before Jesus before my little head could even begin to try and control anything.

And what do you know — I learned a whole heaping ton about surrendering this year. Just one week into the new year I was already learning about surrendering to God – to his will for my life and Nixon’s, to his timing, and laying down my preferences and priorities and trading them for his.

Think of a time when your heart just felt relieved. You could take a deep breath again. You felt the weight drop off your shoulders. You finished a big project. You heard good news from the doctor. You had a chance to take a vacation after long weeks at work. You felt free. One value Aaron and I have for our home is that it’s a place of safety — where you can come and just relax. I see this a lot in our cat and I know you might think this is a silly example but cats are pretty particular animals. They’re typically on guard a lot — at least ours is. But when I watch her stretch out on a cozy blanket, legs long and belly out, I know she feels safe enough to do that. That’s what surrendering these worries felt like this year. It felt safe. There was a sense of calm. When I could give them over to God and let him handle them, I could just rest. Breathe. Relax. Surrendering isn’t giving up or giving in. It’s more of a handing off of whatever it is that’s weighing on your soul and letting God be in control, or rather, recognizing that he already is in control and he doesn’t need you or want you to spend time worrying.

And this year, I learned about surrendering in pregnancy.

first ultrasound of Nixon at seven weeks.

We found out I was pregnant on January 7 and about a week later I started feeling so sick I could puke (but thankfully didn’t) every single day. I laid on the couch and watched more TV in those first few weeks than I probably did the whole rest of the year. If you know me at all, you know I’m not much of a TV watcher and I’m not very good at just laying around. But I knew I had to allow my body to slow down and do the work it needed to do. I mean, it was growing an entire human being. Oof! I can’t get over the miracle that it is. So I laid around while praying continuously that God would sustain the life within me. I could have worried myself sick throughout the entire nine months but I knew that wouldn’t be good for me or for Nixon. I knew God had a plan for me and for our baby and I had to give it over to him instead of constantly worry that everything was okay. This was a daily surrendering to the process of making a new life - one that I had absolutely no control over. I’ve written about this before - my fear of miscarrying again constantly gnawed at me until 18 or 19 weeks when I could finally feel Nixon’s little body move within my own. Graciously, God gave us the gift of a healthy babe in August.

I learned about surrender in the timing of moving back to Nebraska.

me and Darla (and 28 week old Nixon) going through security at the airport on our way back to Nebraska.

If it were up to me, I would have preferred to move back before I was even pregnant but as it turns out we moved back just as I was starting my third trimester. In fact, Aaron moved back for good just seven weeks before Nixon was born! We knew we would be back here eventually but waiting on the right job for Aaron proved difficult. Ask Aaron how often I checked in with him to see if there were any jobs to apply for back in Lincoln. Eek! And then once we knew we were moving you might ask him the number of times I melted at the thought of trying to figure out how to get our house full of possessions across the ocean. It’s somewhere between 1 and probably a million. I blame pregnancy hormones and also my personality. Ha! But God had it all worked out for us. We were back home to Nebraska with a place to live and the most perfect job for Aaron, all in time for Nixon’s birth! All of it is a blessing not lost on me.

I learned about surrendering to God’s plan for the birth of our baby. Nixon’s birth was most assuredly not what we had planned – certainly not the day we had planned. I know due dates are a bit of a guess but with the number of times people told me you’re always late with your first baby, I was thinking we had three to four weeks of pregnancy left when Nixon showed up on the scene. You can read more about that in his birth story, but suffice it to say I was completely shocked to know we would be delivering that day and then five hours later holding our son in our arms. But, then again, God knew. Nixon wasn’t born a moment too early but arrived just as God planned it and my preferences in that moment didn’t matter at all.

And then there has been the surrendering of my very body for the life of this child.

Nixon wilder at one month old.

I have found (in my very limited, new experience) that being a mother is a daily act of surrender. Giving up our bodies entirely for another. Losing our life to create new. Isn’t that a bit like a picture of the gospel? The old is gone, the new has come, and this beautiful, breathtaking new is an image of God the world has never seen. So we mothers lay down our lives, our old selves gone forever, for the birth of this new life, this new magnificent creation, born of His design. It is a rigorous step of sanctification — one that will last the rest of our earthly lives in new forms each day. But I try to remember in the challenging times, where I’m crying and he’s crying, that this is meant for me right now. This is meant to challenge, to mold, to shape, to sharpen, to bring me more toward the heart of Jesus. So I will give up my body, my heart, my life for this new (nearly) four month old life so that he might know my love for him and God’s love for both of us. Because it’s in the giving, the serving, the laying down of our lives that we really find our lives just as He said. 

So just as I think I’ve learned one lesson on surrendering, God is already preparing my heart for the next. And isn’t there something daily we can put at the foot of the cross and trust that he is in it all? There is a surrendering of the will that must happen for each of us in various aspects of life. But the good news in all of this — the very best, most important news —is that I can surrender it all because I know in my guts that HE is GOOD. If he weren’t good, if he didn’t show himself faithful again and again, why would I give it over to him? How could he be trusted? But he IS good. I know this in my bones. So I can lay down my plans and trade them for his with confidence that his way is better than my way.

And this isn’t a lesson I have solely learned this year simply because it was my chosen word. I have had to learn this art of surrendering over the last decade or so. There have been many things I hoped to have control over or thought God should, at the very least, ask for my input on because I had a lot of thoughts and opinions. Thankfully he did not, because the majority of the time I can look back and say I have no idea what I was thinking. Gosh, there were times I worked my little life right into a disaster zone and I kept banging my face on the wall of my own self-righteousness and pride and desire to control different areas of my life and finally I just said, “No more,” or rather God really dug into my soul and said, “No more. You’re done with this,” and pulled me up out of a lot of darkness. He graciously rescued me from myself and it’s been in the last few years that I’ve remembered to say, “Not what I want, God, but what you want,” and my circumstances may not have changed (though sometimes they did) but my heart about them was certainly transformed. My patience grew teeth and I could hang on a little longer. My heart for the Lord rooted deeper. My faith had an anchor. It has taken me 35 years to learn a life of dependence on him and I want to live the next 35 walking that out.

I know that just because the calendar turns to 2020 and I have a new word for the year that there won’t be numerous lessons in surrender for 2020 and for the rest of my life. For instance, Aaron and I are currently looking for a house to buy – a place to call our own and finally settle in for a little while. We’ve been looking consistently now for nearly six months and it’s taking a little too long if you ask me. So here again I remind myself that God knows our finances, he knows the house we’ll end up in, and he goes before us to prepare the way and prepare our hearts. I know he has the right place for us all worked out, so we’ll keep looking until we feel him leading a certain way. I just want to surrender the process to him knowing he will bring it all about in the right time.

So, as we close out this year and this decade, I want to remember the lessons of this year as I go forward into the next and the next. It’s all about trusting him no matter the circumstances — surrendering my will for his, knowing that his is better than anything I could think up. And perhaps you think I just write the same things over and over again here on this blog and you’re kind of right. My life makes no sense without looking through the lens of Christianity and the love of Jesus. And what a perfect time of year to be reminded of this – when we celebrate Christmas – the birth of sweet Jesus and his life as Emmanuel, God with us. It is my favorite attribute about him. He doesn’t leave us alone to figure out this life on our own. He walked the earth. He felt the pain. He gave up his glory for us. What immense surrender to the will of the Father. A beautiful example we can look to at Christmas time, and all year long as we learn the art of letting go and giving it to Him.

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As I’ve shared before, I always use my word for the year as the wallpaper on my phone so I see it every day. If you’re interested, here’s the graphic I had this year. I just found it on Pinterest so I can’t give credit to the artist, but it is not my own work. I’m just thankful for the reminder it served each day this year.