Independence and Surrender

Our entire lives seem to be a battle between independence and surrender.  We seek independence at an early age and relish it for much of our lives.  My two year old niece enjoys the freedom of saying "no" and running where she wants, when she wants.  My nephews want to help with chores and frequently refuse help for themselves, instead wanting to demonstrate their ability to do it on their own.  As adults, we are quick to forget there is any uniqueness in driving where we want, buying what we want, and living how we want.

Age or misfortune catches up to us and we soon find ourselves losing our independence.  We can fight this inevitable fate, but it will only breed bitterness and malcontent.  Eventually, we must surrender.  In the spiritual life, we can learn this gift of surrender earlier.  Relinquishing control of our lives, realizing that we are not the ones in control or willing our own existence, can prepare us for the gradual physical surrender that must happen.

My grandparents are aging and I see the fighting that takes place within them.  I do not blame their desire to grasp their dwindling freedom or to express frustration at a body that is now turning against them.  The simple freedoms are gradually slipping away--no walking around the block, no trips to the grocery store, no single bed for them to share.  The task of getting ready for bed, something so mundane one often forgets it, is now one that requires help.  Waiting outside their bedroom as they were ushered to bed, I thought of how someday that will be me, helping my parents.  And perhaps someday it will be me, being helped to bed.  Inwardly, I rebel at the thought.  I think that I will break the mold, I will not need the help, I will do it on my own.

When visiting them, I can sense the mounting frustration.  There seems to be both a desire to return to health and a desire to die.  My grandparents have not aged prematurely.  In their late 80s-early 90s, they are as fit as one might expect them to be.  Thankfully, they are ill in body but, apart from a little confusion, sound in mind.  I wonder what to say---do I speak of suffering?  Do I remind them to be thankful of their blessings?  Do I try to lighten the mood?  Mostly, I just listen.  I listen to my grandpa tell me about the picture of grandma now on the piano.  He says he wanted it there because that is how she looked when they met.  Her beauty floored him.  I listen to my grandma talk about one of my many cousins.  Her life for so many years has been about others, even now she finds it difficult to draw conversation to herself.  I listen to my grandpa's worries and fears.  I listen to my grandma attempt to follow my mom around the kitchen, asking what she needs help with and telling her what to do.

While age has forced my grandparents to lose independence, illness can do the same for others far younger.  I have a friend from college who has been battling a debilitating illness for the last three years.  It causes her intelligent brain to rebel against reading more than a few lines at a time and forces her marathon trained body to be weak and unpredictable.  I refuse to canonize her yet, but I have witnessed the beauty of her striving to surrender herself to God in His inscrutable plan.  Such a situation could easily lead to depression and bitterness, but she is fighting the good fight, ironically by striving to lay down her arms.

How do we surrender?  It is a choice.  We can see physically our limitations.  I can really want to do something yet find myself incapable.  The spiritual limitations are less clear.  With those, we can fool ourselves into thinking they aren't there or that we have surrendered, simply by virtue of thinking the words once or twice.

In surrendering, we choose to not manipulate the situation, we choose to not be in control.  After years of being told that we can do it and that we are the ones running our lives, it is counter-cultural to step back and release control.  I can drive myself anywhere I want, I can eat whatever food I want, and I can spend my time as I choose.  But I do not will my heart to keep beating, I cannot control the replication of my cells, and I am powerless in making myself continue to exist.  For all the little things I doggedly control, I am incapable of controlling all the major aspects of my life.  Accepting God's authority in my life is central to becoming the saint He desires me to be.

Lord, help us to surrender, to admit with our lives that we are not the ones in control.  In our inmost being we desire to belong to You and to give ourselves over to You.  Grant us the grace to do so.

"Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go."  John 21: 18

Jesus Take the Wheel

"OK, Lord, this is Your classroom."

That might make you think that I am a very holy teacher.  Trustingly surrendering my classroom to the Divine Teacher and allowing Him to work through me.

In truth, that was a prayer murmured out of necessity.  A final spiritual dropping to my knees and surrendering out of the inability to do anything else.  It was the first day of a new semester and I was becoming nervous again at the prospect of being scrutinized by new seniors with the inevitable assessment of found wanting.  My emotional transition to a new home wasn't really playing in my favor and to make it a bit more challenging, I forgot my school bag.  Of course I remembered to bring my prayer journal, Bible, cell phone, and prayer materials.  However, I had completely neglected to bring my computer with my introduction PowerPoint and a fun brain activity for them to go through.

At 7:30 in the morning outside my car in the school parking lot, I frantically thought of racing home (15 minutes away) and back to school with my computer.  It was possible, though, that I would come to school late--something I am certain would have led to a melt-down.  Yet if I managed to not be late, I would assuredly come in panicked and short of breath.  This was not a good beginning.

It was here, in the midst of panic and stress that I "surrendered" my class to the Lord.  I realized, as I prayed this silent prayer, that it was because my own means had failed that I was giving God the reins.  If I would have had my computer with the PowerPoint filled with cute family pictures, I would have started the semester in a state of semi-confidence.  Instead, the Lord was given control at the last minute.

This image just come to mind as a plausible analogy of what I did:
I'm in a car driving.  Then the roads get slippery.  My omniscient, omnipotent passenger asks if He can help.  But I've got it.  All of sudden the car is careening toward a cliff or an oncoming semi and just when I'm about to slip over the edge or be crushed, I pull my hands from the steering wheel, cradle my head in my hands, and shout, "Fine!  Take over!"

I felt a little guilty surrendering my classroom only after all my plans had failed.  Perhaps it is a lesson for the semester.  I am not in control.  It is better to just give God my classroom and myself right now instead of waiting until things are crashing and burning all around me.

My goal for this brand new semester is to take the passenger seat and allow God to dictate my classes.  Not once I tried my way and it failed.  But His way, always His way.

Who knows---maybe God will have a better method than me.

the soundtrack to my life

Time for a milestone, time to begin again
Re-evaluate who I really am
Am I doing everything to follow Your will
Or just climbing aimlessly over these hills?
So show me what it is You want from me
I give everything, I surrender

To whatever You're doing inside of me
It feels like chaos but somehow there's peace
And though it's hard to surrender to what I can't see
I'm giving in to something Heavenly, something Heavenly

                         -"Whatever you're doing (something Heavenly)"
                                           Sanctus Real

Roots

I've never read the book but I am in love with the title of a book that goes to the effect of "The Appalling Strangeness of the Mercy of God."  That seems to be my life.  I am convinced that if God gave me everything I asked for, I would be extremely miserable.  Yet I still ask for things, unsure if they are desires of my own or of God.  He has shielded me from many injuries and pains because He alone understands my tender heart.  There are experiences that I have never had because of God in His wisdom and mercy.  While I often criticize God for holding out on me, I know He has my best interests in mind.  Even now as I am treading water wondering where I am to go or do, I know He has a beautiful plan.  But this heart of mine is quick to doubt and worry.  I find myself feeling very alone and isolated.  I live at home but I feel that I don't have a home at times. 

Where am I to be?  Where do I plant roots? 

For some reason the answer for me doesn't seem to simply be to build a foundation where I lived the first eighteen years of my life.  Home isn't home.  While I don't want to leave, I'm not certain how much I want to stay.  I know that "no man is an island" but I feel as though I am a fish swimming in the river, joining up with one school before transitioning to another.  Not forsaken or alone but not tied down.  I am beginning to understand the great desire my heart has to be bound to something or someone.  The media portrays women as independent and never desiring to be anybody's anything.  Yet how deeply I do!  I want a promise of forever.  My mind and heart long for marriage but I think my truest heart is calling out for Jesus.

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

If God were to lead me to a different school every year then I would need to rely solely on God.  The problem is that it is tiring.  Life is a constant battle and I often love that idea and relish the thought of fighting.  But then I get tired and what I long for most ardently is eternal rest.  Perhaps all of these desires are true and natural, maybe even desired by God.  The necessary aspect is to submit to God's will.  My identity is rooted most securely in Him.  Regardless of what may come, I can always be convinced of being His daughter, His creation, His love.  This is where I am right now and I cannot know what the future holds.  Despite the plethora of uncertainties, I can assuredly know that I have a home that will never be taken from me--nestled in the Eucharistic heart of my Lord.

Reminders

Some days I simply need to remind myself:

1) I cannot convert my own heart, let alone the hearts of my students.
2) They are not mine; I must give them to the Lord because only He can do what is needed.
3) I am flawed and in need of conversion, too.