This was written on Wednesday, March 26, 2014. And so you know before you begin reading, my grandfather is out of the hospital and doing better. He takes it one day at a time.
My grandfather is in the hospital again and I laugh at this. I don’t laugh because of the fact that he is sick and in the hospital; I laugh at God. On Sunday night at the Kari Jobe & Rend Collective concert/worship experience I asked God what I was holding tightly to that I had not surrendered over to Him. He immediately responded with “My Family.” As I began praying and laying my family at His feet, we began singing “I Surrender All.” I knew this was not going to be an easy thing to surrender, but I knew it was what God was asking of me. So I surrendered my family over to God. I told Him that I had been trying to change things and do things for them, knowing full well that I could do nothing from 12 hours away. I couldn’t be there sitting with my grandfather or taking my mom back and forth to doctor appointments or any number of other things that I have wanted to do but have not been able to do. I have worried and stressed about my family and wanted control. I also told Him that if He needed to take any or all of my family in order to make me into the person He needed me to be, I was willing to make that sacrifice. It was a hard prayer to pray, but it was one that I know He was asking me to pray. So then and there I laid my family at His feet and walked away.
Monday morning I got the call that my grandfather had been admitted to the hospital again. In the past when I have received similar phone calls, I have begun to stress and worry about what was going on and what I could do. Then after a while of stress and worrying I would remember that I have no control and hand my family over to God, only to take them back again as soon as the situation was over. Something different happened this time. I heard the news and was completely at peace. I did not stress or worry. I did not try and figure out what I could do from 12 hours away. I simply said, “I handed this to God last night. It’s not mine to control.”
In a way I see this as a test. I know this test is not over. This is just the first question. The truth of this test will come with every new event that occurs in my family’s life that I cannot be there for. This is where I will know if I have truly surrendered them or not. I passed the first question.
Matthew 10: 34-39
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
Is there something in your life that you have been clinging desperately to that God is asking you to completely surrender over to Him? If so, I pray that you would run to Him and be willing to lay it at His feet and walk away. It will not be easy but it will be worth it. There is such peace in this. The peace mentioned in Philippians 4.
