Surrender

Surrender feels like failure.

It feels depressing, like giving up.

There is a darkness to it, a weight to it—the unwilling outmanned, outmaneuvered, surrounded, and pressed to defeat.

Surrender feels like exhaustion.

It feels compressing, like yielding up the last breathless bits of me.  

And yet You call me to this laying down of arms jazz

in exchange for Your loving arms.

And I find that surrender to You is not as much giving up as over—not as much failing as falling into a tender pull,

deference to one more wise and able, after all my best ideas have faltered and failed,

after all my excuses have dried in my mouth,

after all my tears have washed away nothing.

It is the unclenching of a fist, the unmasking of a façade.

It is the baring of a war-torn will, the stripping of all that chokes and hinders.

And I find that surrender to You is not as much like crying “uncle,”

but more like a hallelujah.

Willing To Be Defeated

I used to be cocksure,

willing to trample fragile souls for the sake of being right. And

it hurts to think I was so unlike Your sacrificial kindness, so unlike Your bleeding, selfless truth.

May I be willing to be defeated to win one. May I grow accustomed to embarrassment to at least appear humble as the pride prickles are chiseled away—one by one, by weary one.

My kingdom looks ever dim in the bright hues of Your shining presence—and may all see You

in spite of me.

If I would feed on Your words more than I feed on my need, I would be so much more nourished

with life to give.

A Limping Life

I heard your whisper in the wind, and

I leaned to listen; but

my lisping voice rose rough and rasping, replaying all the shame moments,

the named moments—over and over,

owning their bite.

I glimpsed your face in the green breeze of spring, and

I opened my eyes wide to see and be seen, but

the haze of doubt drifted down like a curtain, so I was unsure of what was there; and

blinking long and hard only tired my eyes,

my heart,

my will.

I put my knee to ground in weakness,

convinced that my limping life would never be anything more than this,

that tears would ever flow; but

you met me there

where

words are soft and

light is clear and

belief is birthed from unbelief.

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Be still and know that I am God. ~Psalm 46:10a

Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief. ~Mark 9:24b