"Surrender to God." Do we truly know what that means? Back in February, days before Daddy's passing, I sent a message to a friend that I was surrendering the friendship to God because the friendship had gotten hard, and friendships shouldn't be that hard. I had given up hope in the friendship. Then Daddy died 5 days later. The day before Daddy's one-month death anniversary, the friendship ended. A double whammy of grief.

God, I can't take any more. It has been almost 9 months of blow after blow, emergency after emergency, pain after pain. God, Why? I have been fighting so many battles privately that only those closest to me knew about. But I kept on praying, fasting, believing, hoping. God had me, and 2025 was going to be the year for miracles and blessings, yet the rug was pulled from under my feet, leaving me to grieve through two people who were near and dear to me, who were built into my daily and weekly life.

One day at a time. That's all I can do at the moment. My therapist recommended Lysa Terkeurst's "It's Not Supposed to Be This Way" book. In this book, she has a section about what it means to surrender. She writes, 

"When we hit the place in our lives where we finally realize some things are truly more than we can handle, we will throw our hands in surrender. And that surrender can happen in one of two ways.

We might surrender to the enemy, giving in to those feelings that this isn't fair, God isn't there, and God isn't good. Or, we can surrender to God. This kind of surrender isn't giving in; it's giving up! Giving up carrying the weight of all that's too much for us to our God, who not only can carry it but use it for good. When we know the truth about the amazing things God can do with the dust and the potsherds of life, we won't surrender to the negative lies of the enemy." (pg. 117)

Reading that, my spirit sank. Even though I surrendered the friendship, I surrendered it to the enemy in that I had lost hope. God hadn't moved in the way I wanted God to move. Did God even care? God, this is not fair! Yet Lysa's words took hold of me. Surrendering is giving it up. 

Death of Daddy and death of a friendship happened, yet surrendering meant to stop asking the questions why. It's to stop trying to reconcile the questions and answers. Surrendering is to let go of the weight of the woulda, shoulda, coulda's and just being still and giving it all to God. 

Surrendering is to stand on one of my favorite scriptures as Lysa said, "For I know the plans I have for you...plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you." (Jeremiah 29:11-14).

In the long suffering and pain, it's not ours to carry but to seek God, because when we seek God, we will find God. And when we find God, we will understand that God knows the future, that God has a different perspective than we do. We may never know the answers; God may never reveal why we had to go through the suffering, but God does tell us that God is giving us a hope and a future. That even when God gives us more than we can bear, we can surrender it all to God. We can give it all to God and stop carrying it just like Job did.

So my call to all reading this: What do you need to surrender to God? What do you need to cease carrying and give to God? Isaiah 61:4 says "to give them a crown in place of ashes." What are your ashes of dust that need to be given to God? What is in your heart that you're carrying around that needs to be given to the Holy Spirit to take? What are you carrying around and praying for daily/weekly/monthly that needs to be handed over to Jesus?