Chapter 6: Surrender

Growing Through Grief

Sometimes people don’t find God until they have reached the end of themselves. For me, despite knowing the Lord, I never fully surrendered myself to Him until I had nothing left to give. At the beginning of my second trimester, I received some terrifying news about the pregnancy. I went in for an emergency ultrasound because I was bleeding. The doctor told us that she didn’t know for sure, but there could possibly be a pregnancy complication and she was referring me to a specialist for the remainder of the pregnancy. At the specialist we learned that it was a rare condition in which the placenta curves inward, the edges no longer attached to the uterine wall. There was an increased risk of preterm birth, developmental delays, placental abruption, and fetal death. As the doctor rattled off the list of potential complications my heart sank to my stomach, my throat tightened as tears well up in my eyes. The last time I cried that much was the day my mom passed away.

There was nothing we did to cause it, and nothing we could do to prevent any of the risks. I was put on heavy restrictions from exercising and lifting. The next morning I went out to the garden to pull some weeds and talk to the Lord, just as a way to get out of my own head which was riddled with anxious thoughts. Later that afternoon the bleeding came back, I called my doctor and was immediately told I couldn’t garden either.

I could not believe that after all I had been through, I could possibly lose the baby I prayed day and night for. I was heartbroken. It felt like the ultimate betrayal from the Lord. I cried, I prayed, I reached out to my church community for support and prayers. I knew that although my fragile heart was breaking, I had to place it in God’s hands. There was simply nothing else I could do. I had reached the end of myself.

Surrender. It seems so simple, but in actuality this was the hardest lesson to learn. I had to finally tear the veil to see that my pseudo sense of control was just that—false. I had no control. I had no control over anything in my life. There is nothing I can do to stop bad things from happening, and nothing I could do to ensure only good things would happen.

I began reading I Surrender All by Priscilla Shirer. She writes, “A surrendered disciple is the first to notice value in adversity.” Finding value in adversity? It’s easier said than done. And if you’re anything like me, it’s mostly done in hindsight. But Priscilla explores this value a little more deeply, “What if there is a communion and depth of friendship with Jesus that only comes to those who’ve held His hand and walked with Him through seasons of suffering?” We are purchased by His blood, and it is through His sacrifice that we are able to share in His glory, therefore we must also share in His sufferings. We aren’t promised a life of sunshine and rainbows when we come to know Christ, the rain does come. But the thing about rain is that it’s needed for growth; it’s how God cares for the living things around us. “Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.” Romans 5:3-4 ESV Our Lord, the author and perfector of our faith, uses our seasons of suffering to grow us.

Sharing in Christ’s sufferings isn’t a foreign concept for Christians, there are many scriptures that point to this very thing. 1 Peter 4:13 says ”Instead, be very glad—for these trials make you partners with Christ in this suffering, so that you will have the wonderful joy of seeing his glory when it is revealed to all the world.” Very glad, some versions say rejoice. Another scripture reads, “And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering.” Romans 8:17 NLT

Even still we will never fully know the suffering Christ faced. In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus faced such agonizing despair to the point where the text describes him “sweating like great drops of blood,” Luke 22:44 NLT In moments of utter anguish and anxiety our Lord said “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death.” Matthew 26:38 NLT. We will never know what it is like to face such spiritual and physical distress and grief. But our Savior shows us what to do in times of suffering— we pray and surrender. Three times Jesus goes to pray and asks God to let this cup of suffering be taken away from Him, but He ends each prayer with, “nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” Surrender.

A couple weeks ago I shared how I learned the famous Serenity prayer in its entirety. The second stanza goes

“Living one day at a time,

Enjoying one moment at a time,

Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,

Taking, as Jesus did,

This sinful world as it is,

Not as I would have it,

Trusting that You will make all things right,

If I surrender to Your will,

So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,

And supremely happy with You forever in the next.”

I prayed and asked the Lord to take away my anxieties and my worries. He told me we had to take this one day at a time.

Priscilla Shirer says, “He sovereignly keeps these hard realities from becoming a wasted wilderness. He allows and uses adversity to boost our capacity for detecting and digesting what matters most in life.” If anything, that is what this season of grief has shown me. Pain births purpose and despite our sufferings, each and every day is a blessing to share with those you care about.

Join me next week as I share an important lesson I learned from my garden during that season— Abiding.