Surgery of surrender

Sunday on my drive to Meeting (church), this phrase ran through my head seemingly out of nowhere:

Cut it loose

It's still with me and I wondered if it was something I was meant to say in worship, but it didn't feel like it then.

Tuesday and Wednesday, I hosted an overnight guest, a very good friend from my School of the Spirit days. That's when I spent two years commuting to Philadelphia while participating in a Quaker program of spiritual-nurture ministry. A chunk of that time was spent in an assigned small group charged with developing deep community. Mine was totally dysfunctional for a variety of reasons and a VERY difficult period in my life. However, I learned that sometimes the nurture is not where you expect, but it IS there. This overnight visitor was one of the people who nurtured me outside of that group. She and several others kept me going when the small community was draining, even damaging, at times. I have reached a place where I am grateful to that group and carry each person fondly. There were great lessons from that trying experience. I have cut the resentment loose.

My traveling friend, as she often does, challenged me with a workshop she'd just led on discipleship. I asked her what that meant and she said letting God direct your life. Surrender, I thought. I keep hearing the same thing from my mother, who says it's easier to put that into practice as we age and gain a different perspective.

Isn't that the same as cutting it loose, I  ruminate.

Here's what I think I am being called to cut loose:
– Any expectation (mine or others') about publishing my book and just charging ahead.
– Attempts to convince others this IS my ministry. I KNOW it is and that's enough.
– Comparisons to anything else I or others may make. This book is uniquely MY message and one Spirit drives me to share.
– Worry PERIOD.
– Self doubt.
– Things and people that are not energyzing.
– Anything that's not creative or joyful.
– Feeling obligated to say yes.
– My need to control.
– My need to feel in charge.
– Being anything other than who I am.
– Ego.

Wow, that lists calls for an awfully large knife and I know of only one place that's available: surrender. I pray I can tolerate losing the burdens I heap on myself in this surgery.


• What am I called to cut loose in my life?
• What do I need for that?
 • How can I be prayerful and ask others to support me?
• What will my life look like after that emptying?
• What can that free me for?




I carry
so much


it bears
down
on me


sucking
the
joy


robbing
my
energy


all
because
I have
invested
so much


in
a persona,
a label,
a mask

that is
no longer
mine
to wear

I ache
to discover
the freedom
of  what lies
beneath