Surrender

I was wanting to write a post about being happy, joyful or even something about some good thing in life, however, at the moment I cannot bring myself to do it, to even feel it. If I were to attempt to do that, I am not being truthful to myself. I surrender to the feeling of darkness that is in me. I feel it to the very depths of my soul. It causes me to ache. Somehow it is like something needing to overtake me. It is something that has been denied for too long and now it is clawing, scratching demanding to come to the surface. My eyes burn with tears that have been held back today and from tears that could not be held back. Grand attempts were made at keeping them at bay and they were futile at best.
I want to wrap myself in a shroud so that nothing else can pierce my being and I can just surrender to this darkness. It is like being in a cocoon and I can totally surrender my being to this darkness. Nothing can disturb me. No fighting any longer and there is relief in this. Like in the moments of what someone must feel in the seconds before they take their last breaths. Almost surreal and in that moment of dying, of surrender, there is new birth. Something transforming, changing, making new, some stirring of something beautiful that is about to emerge.

The thing is, often I struggle against it. As much as change and growth is needed in my life, I find myself fighting against it. Sometimes it is short-lived and I re-surrender to the moment and let whatever happen be. At other times the battles are epic and long-lasting until I tire or see with clear eyes what I am doing and I fall to the ground once again surrendering myself to this pain. What a dance this birth of transformation and surrendering is. I whine like a little child, “I don’t want to do this”! Guilt seeps in and tells me all the things I haven’t done well enough. There are all the things I didn’t do and should have done. When one doesn’t challenge and stays in a defined box it is acceptable. However, if you rip open the box and dare to be something different chaos is created. Not just for others, but for oneself. It is not acceptable even at times to my own being and I want to fight it instead of surrender and allow it to be.

I have been reading a book entitled I Touch the Earth and the Earth Touches Me by Hugh Prather. It is a book with snippets of thought or observations. One of the statements made is “Growth” can get to be such a deadly business. I am living this. I am seeing this. I am understanding this. It twists and turns and strips away my being and tonight I surrender to it. Maybe in the morning I will fight it again. Maybe I won’t. Maybe I will just allow the sands of time to wash over me and sit patiently and see what this weathering does and what transformations take place. Maybe I will try to dust it off, shake it off and say “Where is this damn sand coming from! It’s annoying, bothersome, get the hell away from me!” Whatever comes, whatever I do, it will be okay. There is surrender in that.

There is also work in that too. For it is one thing to know something, it is another thing to actually receive it. Believing is the easy part, knowing, living it and breathing it, this is where the real work comes in. This was a realization I came to yesterday as well when I was doing my bible reading. If you believe and receive then you will become. I am fantastic at believing, I am not so great at receiving and therefore becoming is also fleeting. In this transformation I am working on me. Finding the places where the sand has not yet traveled and needs to do its work so that I may become. To believe is intellectual, to receive is to claim it as my own. There was a statement from the novelist Walter Wangerin, Faith is work. It is a struggle. You must struggle with all your heart. And on the way God will ambush you. I have been struggling and God has ambushed me and in my darkness I surrender to Him. I rest in the shroud that surrounds me. I ache, I cry silently, I open myself up and wait. Surrender.