// Shelby Hawks //

Take a moment to call to mind the great mystery, tension, and pain of surrender.

There’s always that moment, the one you know well.  That moment when the dust settles in the fading light and you are left alone in the room with Him.  You are left alone with the sound of words, reverberating off of the walls, reminding you of the promise you just made and the control you willingly killed when you said: I surrender.

Perhaps there is nothing more contrary to our humanity, sister.  Perhaps there is nothing that defies the natural desire for control, for certainty more than the act of surrender.  

And perhaps there is nothing quite as painful, quite as terrifying, as that moment when the words of surrender are whispered and you are left with its echo which demands the act, the physical handing over.

There is a certain pain that accompanies that familiar tug, beckoning a deeper surrender.  It comes creeping up, when I feel like I have already given Him everything, when I have already laid myself, naked, in His incomprehensible light.  

But still He wants more.

And the pain of it is this: that no matter how hard I try to resist, no matter how frequently I pull away, no matter how quickly I rush to close the door, I recognize that He wills my good and therefore, this pain is necessary to grow.

Sister, I am certain you will agree with this: the pain increases when my heart is involved.  When I fall in love with a dream, when I attach to a distant hope, when I cling to an unfulfilled desire—that is when the whispered plea to give it up aches like hell.  Still, the handing over is necessary.  It is in the embrace, when He comes so close, that the handing over becomes bearable and the pain of uprooting is soothed with the balm of His Healing Gaze.  

Yet, there remains a final painful moment: the moment when I recognize I no longer have control.  That is the moment when I must choose: Do I trust Him with my heart stuff?  With the painful longing?  With the unfulfilled desire?  With agonizing hope?

I don’t always, sister.  I don’t always trust Him.  I don’t always want to go deeper.  But man, every time I do, I know Him in it.  Each time I hand over this heart, it hurts.  But each time, we emerge from the wooded Eden hand in hand, and I see Him clearer than I did before.

It’s purifying pain.  But it is worth it, because we both know that surrender left undone is far more agonizing than the tearful handing over of a raw heart.

He’s a jealous lover, pursuing passionately the hearts of those who ache for Him.

Let go and choose newness in the uprooting.