Surrender is a messy thing. It's simultaneously easier and harder to avoid than to face. I have been so confused and frustrated lately. Coming before God really believing that you have surrendered all of your circumstances to Him and yet feeling as if something huge is being withheld without your knowledge is a very frustrating place to be. My position as of late with my job at the church has made me that much more acutely aware of the responsibility I have to be fully surrendered to whatever God has for me, and yet I've felt farther away then where I've wanted to be in the past few days.
A glimpse of light has just barely started to shine on this frustrated confusion I've had. I think what I'm starting to realize is that it's not just circumstances we must surrender. It's also not our emotions, reactions to situations, or spiritual contentment that we must surrender. I must surrender all of the lies that I have believed and have allowed to be ingrained into my heart.
Some things have occurred in the last couple of days that have brought to the surface of my very skin some deeply embedded fears and lies that I have allowed to be buried into my self assessment of my value and worth. This is deeply saddening to me because one of my deepest passions is reaching young girls lives to help them realize their worth; their value in the eyes of Christ, and all of these years I've allowed the same thing to keep me from fully diving into that endeavor. Irony.
Yesterday would have been my dad's 56th birthday. Sometimes I wonder if he was really the only person apart from hopefully my husband one day who would understand me the most. I hear we were a lot alike. As much as I want to discount the whole theory of "daddy issues" I have realized that I can't be healed of them if I don't admit them.
Hi, my name is Brooke, and I have daddy issues.
It's true, and I fear even as I write this that at the sound of that it will send some people running for the hills. I have been told I'm "too much", I have been told I'm too loud, too honest; I have been called crazy, creepy, weird, out of control and pretty much everything else under the sun. Granted a lot of these comments have been self inflicted because of my love of teasing and joking around and using sarcasm as a crutch and a defense, but nonetheless, most of them have cut deep and continue to do so. What's happened over the years is I have begun to believe these things as bad things. Not saying that I don't have a lot of work to do on myself, we all have a lot of work to do, and if you don't think you do than you have the most. What's begun to happen is I have started to doubt that any part of me is ever worth truly, madly, deeply loving. I live in a state of fear that I will be "found out". I live thinking that I will never truly be lovable, that I really am too much, that I will not ever be worth it to anyone to actually stick around. I cover this up by acting extremely confident, and happy, and energetic. These are a part of my personality! And that really is who I am! But not all the time. I have moments where I act that way simply to hide something that will make me look vulnerable or weak.
Ok, now that I've spilled the secret and all my guts along with it, and now that I'm already embarrassed thinking about anybody reading this, I have arrived at my point; I can't get rid of these lies on my own. I must SURRENDER them to my Father who looks at me and tells me I AM WORTH IT. I was worth it already. It is finished. I am His. I am loved despite my quirks, my sin, my imperfections. In fact I'm loved because of them. For years I have felt guilty at not being able to overcome these lies by simply refuting them.
See, surrender is actually the most incredible life giving gift that God could have ever given me. He wants to take these lies from me, but I have to not only declare them as lies, but hand them over to Jesus, heart to heart, and let Him declare them as lies. Let His voice speak over His daughter and heal her of these deeply ingrained life drainers so that no matter who comes and goes out of her life, she will not be able to deny her value.
I'm probably trying to control this process more than I should be, and I am asking God to show me how to surrender these lies to Him, not just try and not believe them on my own. I need to surrender the process of surrendering :) And the only way I know how to do this is to ask for His mercy and let it just wash over me. But I would appreciate prayers from anyone who would be willing to take on such a task and partner with me in the next step of freedom to be able to serve Him without the fear of what others think of me.
