"There must be full surrender before full blessing."
Dave and I recently started attending BSF (Bible Study Fellowship). It's an amazing opportunity for men and women from all kinds of denominations coming together to study the Bible. I have learned so much in the past 3 weeks and of all things we are studying the book of Leviticus. :) (There's my little plug for BSF!)
Last week, our teacher shared the quote - "There must be full surrender before full blessing." This quote hit me because this entire journey of infertility has been teaching me the discipline of surrender. It's not just a one thing and you're done...not for me anyways. It requires almost a daily surrender - opening up my hands and asking God to take it from me because I'm miserable trying to take care of it on my own. This quote reminded me that it's all or nothing . Isn't that what surrender means anyways? If you are only giving up part, it's not really surrender.
I looked up the definition of surrender. It's to agree to stop fighting, hiding, resisting because you know you will not win or succeed. It's to give control of something to someone else and it's to allow something or someone to influence or control you.
What a great picture this paints for me. There has been a lot of fighting, resisting and trying to hold on to control over the past year and a half. I tried for so long to hold on tight to the control I thought I had. I resisted giving it up and then it hit me: I will not win. I don't remember exactly when it happened - a couple months ago I think but I was miserable and was fighting for so long that I was exhausted and realized that this was going to end badly if I kept clinging to this. I told God to take it from me - he could have my infertility - I was sick of it, didn't want to hang onto it any longer because it was eating me up inside. At the time, it was more of a throwing it back in his face than quietly surrendering it. I still find myself wanting to take it back, to try to put it back in my hands and in my timing but God is quietly reminding me to trust Him and leave it in His hands because I've already surrendered it. I've already given over that control....I already know that I will not succeed with it on my own.
But like I said, this is daily discipline. My sinful nature gets in the way and I recognize that without God, I can't surrender it in the first place. He helps me and gently pries my gripped hands open and tells me, "Give it me, I will make your burden light - let me carry this heavy load for you."
When I heard the quote at BSF I realized that I have to fully give this infertility over to God in order to see the blessings. I realize that the blessings might not be in the form that I'm expecting or hoping to see but there will be blessings.
I hope that you - whoever may be reading this - will consider what you need to surrender to God. Do you feel like you're not seeing the blessings from God? Maybe he's waiting for you to surrender.
