A lot of what these last five months have been about is surrender. And it’s not fun.
So far my list of things surrendered looks about like this:
Personal space.
Alone time.
Decision making.
How my time is spent.
The food I eat.
Sleep schedules.
And that’s just to name a few.
I thought I was doing pretty well with the process. I had been able to keep my head on through it. No crying about losing these things. Just do it, was my motto. I would tell myself things like “that’s just what this year is about… losing yourself will result in so much more of God.”
Then it happened. The thing I didn’t want to let go of, had to go. I was called out of leadership. Ouch. For a few days I sat in a bad mood. I sat in my feelings of rejection and of failure. And I pouted about it.
When I began to process it, I was trying to figure out how to let go of leadership. But I came to realize that leadership was already gone. I didn’t have to let go of it because it was already taken away. What I had to process was surrendering my feelings about it.
Throughout this month I began processing it. I gave over my feelings of rejection and of failure. I asked God to remind me who I am, He did, and it was lovely. I was emptied and filled back up.
Without realizing it consciously, I thought that was it. Wrapped up in a nice and tidy bow, I thought I was done with surrender and that I had finished up that part of this journey.
Just when I thought I had laid everything down, the Lord asked for more.
I showed up to meet with the whole squad a few days ago and the first thing we’re told is, next month we’re doing an internet fast. Usually I would say no problem. This month though is our last month to fundraise. And I have $3,700 to go. In four weeks. With no way to fundraise. No more emailing and no more blogs.
I held it together on the outside but internally I was falling apart. I sat there like a stone because I knew the second I moved I would look on the outside how I felt on the inside. Scared and frustrated.
I thought, here we go again. Surrender.
The more I think about it the more I come to realize that this is a lot like leadership. Sometimes God has to take things away from me in order for me to surrender. When I was told about the internet fast I felt like I had lost control of fundraising but God just asked me a simple question. Did you ever really have control of this anyways?
I still have feelings flying all over the place about this. But it’s either trust or fear and I’m going to go with trust.
So I won’t be checking my funding account this month. I won’t be posting on Facebook every other day. I’ll just be praying and adding control to my list of surrender.
If you feel led to donate please click the link “support me” on the left hand side of the screen.
I’ll be working on a blog on my month in Liepaja, Latvia but for now here are a few photos of what the month looked like
Photo credit: Cori Ward
