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Surrender is really difficult in this day and age. It is a totally foreign concept to many of us (maybe even most?) to do nothing and wait, just wait, for solutions to present themselves. Sometimes, we can barely wait a few hours or even a few minutes, because the perceived stress in our lives makes everything feel urgent. We can make a mess out of all kinds of things real quick. We can make a difficult situation even more complicated in a heartbeat. 

I said a prayer about surrender recently and I meant it. Hardly anything has happened. The clouds did not part. My problems were not instantly all solved according to my wishes. I did not become an Earth-bound angel. Talk about BLEEPING annoying, but I have totally run out of better ideas. All my grand plots or special schemes to do this better or that differently have completely failed and I am exhausted. It finally feels easier to wait for Good (or God) to act in my life and give me direction. 

I’ve been reading Marianne Williamson’s A Return to Love and my God, do I recommend it. In it, she describes arriving at a place of surrender and turning her life over to God (or Good, if you so choose to call it that). She recalls that rather than things initially getting better, they got much worse. 

She writes, “It’s as though my life was a house, and I thought God would give it a wonderful paint job - new shutters perhaps, a pretty portico, new roof. Instead, it felt as though, as soon as I gave the house to God, He hit it with a giant wrecking ball. ‘Sorry, honey,’ He seemed to say, “There were cracks in the foundation, not to mention all the rats in the bedroom. I thought we better just start all over.’” (Williamson, p. 11). 

I’ve waited a long time to get to a place of surrender. It’s funny that twenty years into wondering if there might be a spiritual plane, two years into actively believing and praying, and seventy plus days into a commitment to operating with faith (recorded here on this blog - welcome, everyone), and I have finally reached a place of surrender. That’s a long BLEEPING time for someone’s will to break. I must say I am happy to report that I am officially tuckered out. I have reached a slightly more hopeful state of what can best be described as: fine, whatever, You figure it out. 

The You in question here is God (or Good) and while my current state of being might sound like giving up or resignation, it feels quite the opposite. I am very curious to see if Good (or God) is going to roll up its/their/he/her sleeves and finally get to providing me with the life I could not force for myself. All that insanity and exhaustion and my guess is God (or Good) is going to humiliate me and my best efforts and provide all that I need and more within record time - I look forward to all of you being witnesses. 

Have you ever seen the show Nailed It!, where amateur bakers attempt to mimic a professionally made cake? (Oh man, please watch the clip. It’s incredible) Sometimes I think Good (or God) is out there watching all of us trying to do this BLEEP all by ourselves, just waiting for the opportunity to step in, crack their/its/her/his knuckles, and get to work putting together a masterpiece of a life on our behalf. 

Don’t get me wrong - It’s hard to sit on the sidelines in the kitchen of life. It’s hard to be a novice or an apprentice. The child or ego within us all wants to act like I can do it! or I can figure this out by myself! or I don’t need your help! and then we proceed to make a mess out of everything. I’m actually not sure I regret the mess. I like getting my hands dirty, so to speak. I consider myself an experiential learner. Sometimes, I even say that I like to learn my lessons the hard way. Ha. Ha. It has all been hilarious.  

But at this point, I’m tuckered out. I’m tired of acting like I have all the answers when I don’t. I need rest and recovery, peace and calm and care. It’s funny how whenever we hit a bottom of some kind, it’s actually kind of peaceful. The fall is hard and painful and feels desperate, like crashing down through broken scaffolding covered in cobwebs in the dark and trying to catch ourselves on the way down. We break finger nails, bruise ribs, disappoint people, break our hearts. 

But once we’ve landed and the dust settles, and we know there is nowhere further to fall, it is kind of quiet. In the depths of misery, there is peace in that decision to look around, brush ourselves off, and look up, to see how far we’ve fallen and the mess we’ve made. It takes effort to look for light glimmering high above and ask for help.  

I would say that in the last two years of believing there must be a God (or at least Good) in the Universe and seventy days of living with real faith and daily prayer, things have gotten much worse. Portions of my life are a BLEEPING disaster right now. Probably not what you wanted to hear, dear reader, but I have to report that I have also gotten much stronger and I am going through all of it with real faith that things are getting better. Don’t ask me how that works or why it might be the case, but it’s true and perhaps more importantly, I believe it.