Total Surrender

Romans 8:28 KJV “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”

 “I may be down but don’t you DARE count me out!” ~ Joni

Total Surrender

Even I didn’t understand total surrender. Sometimes I think I have it down but God reminds me all too often that I am not much unlike Job, I lack patience.

Two days this week I’ve woken with so much pain, just trying to step into the shower was not an option. My legs and back were riddled with torment, cane in hand it took everything I had just to make it to the bathroom. I’ve cried a lot this week, in pain, anger, bitterness, and confusion. What happened? I was feeling good and moving right along and it was all taken away in a matter of days.

I didn’t allow fear and doubt to surface instead what arose was impatience. That to me is just as bad as insecurity, doubt and fear. One thing that I still have is my writing. Even when I just want to curl in a ball God reminds me that He gave me a talent and that I shouldn’t just use it for sharing my words with the world, it is a tool in my healing arsenal too. I don’t write for clicks and comments I write to release. 

My morning ritual still consists of reading my bible. I don’t care how much pain I’m in, the bible is like a comfortable pillow that softens the blow of a setback. I read my Encouragement For Today by Bible Gateway, then immerse myself in the scriptures that are used throughout the email. Only recently have I felt that is wasn’t enough so I signed up for a new email, Crosswalk.

“Job didn’t understand why he had to suffer so much. So, throughout the book of Job, we see him expressing heartache and anger at the pain and suffering God was allowing. We also see evidence of his impatience regarding how long it was taking God to bring about restoration." -Excerpt from Bible Gateway

Yesterday was another pain-filled day and my bible was my only source of relief. I read my Bible Gateway and there sat a message for me (all too often this happens), directed right at my soul! It was about total surrender and talked about Job and his impatience. It also spoke of endurance.

I thought nothing of it and went on with writing, not reading my Crosswalk email because I was caught up in reading the word and writing my post but I still wasn’t getting the message of Total Surrender, I thought I already understood but apparently God knows more than me and I was led to read Crosswalk. What I found there was a rare event! The same exact story by Tracie Miles – God Can Restore What’s Lost and Broken.

Here’s an excerpt, used without permission, but giving Tracie Miles full credit! 

“Yet through it all — and despite his human emotions — Job never doubted that full surrender and trust was necessary. In Job 1:21b he even says, “The LORD gave me what I had, and the LORD has taken it away. Praise the name of the LORD!” Despite his suffering, he trusted God’s will for his life and continued to praise Him. As a result, not only did Job’s faith soar, but his life did as well.” ~Tracie Miles, Bible Gateway AND Crosswalk

As a writer, I found it odd that TWO different emails would publish the same exact story on the same day! They’ve been different for weeks now, what was it about today that needed them to both be in sync? Me! Yup, that’s right! I NEEDED to understand the meaning that passed me by, evidently, of Total Surrender!

When I cried out, “What happened to me? Why am I in such pain?” He responded with Total Surrender! THAT is what I was lacking, not a vitamin or supplement, I was lacking giving it all to God and being patient in His response. I was too comfortable in my dependency on God and in all honesty I think I may have had an air of certainty, arrogance and possibly vanity.

Last night at 8:30 a knock at the door came and it was UPS. He had my neck traction device! I squealed with joy and quickly opened the package and put it to use. This morning I woke, after just thirty minutes of the device last night, I felt rejuvenated. Oh, there will be more sittings with my device, and more pain as I go along, but today after yesterday’s realization of what I was doing wrong, I woke with HOPE! Optimism that today is a new day!

With hope on my shoulder, the air of overconfidence shifted, and a new day of what Total Surrender looks like, I move forward.

May God be with you ALL!

Yesterday’s other scripture verse for me. Not coincidental!

Romans 4:18-21 (NIV) “Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, "So shall your offspring be." Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead -- since he was about a hundred years old -- and that Sarah's womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.”

Poetry Sunday ~ Two Alpha Males

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Gen 4:9 “And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?”

Two Alpha Males

Two Alpha males; stiff raised tails 

Evident hate for one another

Circling around with insolent sound

not friend, not father nor brother.

They’ll never know the daily blow

my soul had to take for them.

They’ll never know the pain although

they pool in their self-made phlegm

They think they’ll undo all that’s done

though no one holds the power

to fill my soul in a crumbled soup bowl

in their passive clouded shower.

Their souls misaligned I can’t define

the mismatched ego's they boost.

No one saw the pain; my time in the rain

Abandoned was I to roost.

Will one of them dare to give a care

for the woman they leave behind?

Grieve all alone, no soul of their own

I’ll soon be gone from their mind.

It pains me to say to this very day

the males make the path they take.

No Omega to roam the place called home

their lives a shattered earthquake.

May one day they see the deserted me

while chancing my love with their dance

I’m not impressed with fist thumping chest

Drifting alone I advance.

God be with you both 

Isa. 40:6-8 “The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field:

The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the LORD bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.

Quotation Saturday ~ Quotes to think about

Pss 16:9 Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: my flesh also shall rest in hope.

CHANGE

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” 
― Leo Tolstoy

“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” 
― Albert Einstein

“Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.” 
― Mary Shelley

“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.” 
― Lao Tzu

ACCEPTANCE

“No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.” 
― Alice Walker

“to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you've held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.” 
― Ellen Bass

“Hate is a lack of imagination.” 
― Graham Greene

“If God were our one and only desire we would not be so easily upset when our opinions do not find outside acceptance.” 
― Thomas à Kempis

HATE

“I have decided to stick to love...Hate is too great a burden to bear.” 
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.” 
― James Baldwin

“Now there is a final reason I think that Jesus says, "Love your enemies." It is this: that love has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals. Just keep being friendly to that person. Just keep loving them, and they can’t stand it too long. Oh, they react in many ways in the beginning. They react with guilt feelings, and sometimes they’ll hate you a little more at that transition period, but just keep loving them. And by the power of your love, they will break down under the load. That’s love, you see. It is redemptive, and this is why Jesus says love. There’s something about love that builds up and is creative. There is something about hate that tears down and is destructive. So love your enemies. (from "Loving Your Enemies")” 
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“When swimming in an ocean of hate, we never see ourselves as the shark.”
~ Joni Zipp

ARROGANCE

“Arrogance is someone claiming to have come to Christ, but they won't spend more than five minutes listening to your journey because they are more concerned about their own well being, rather than being a true disciple of Christ. Blessed is the person that takes the time to heal and hear another person so they can move on.” 
― Shannon L. Alder

“The biggest challenge after success is shutting up about it.” 
― Criss Jami

“Arrogance is a creature. It does not have senses.
It has only a sharp tongue and the pointing finger.” 
― Toba Beta

“A prig is a fellow who is always making you a present of his opinions.” 
― George Eliot

“It may be a species of impudence to think that the way you understand God is the way God is.” 
― Joseph Campbell

DIGNITY

“There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me.” 
― Jane Austen

“These are the few ways we can practice humility:
To speak as little as possible of one's self.
To mind one's own business.
Not to want to manage other people's affairs.
To avoid curiosity.
To accept contradictions and correction cheerfully.
To pass over the mistakes of others.
To accept insults and injuries.
To accept being slighted, forgotten and disliked.
To be kind and gentle even under provocation.
Never to stand on one's dignity.
To choose always the hardest.” 
― Mother Teresa

“Self-respect is the root of discipline: The sense of dignity grows
with the ability to say no to oneself.” 
― Abraham Joshua Heschel

“When people want to win they will go to desperate extremes. However, anyone that has already won in life has come to the conclusion that there is no game. There is nothing but learning in this life and it is the only thing we take with us to the grave—knowledge. If you only understood that concept then your heart wouldn’t break so bad. Jealousy or revenge wouldn’t be your ambition. Stepping on others to raise yourself up wouldn’t be a goal. Competition would be left on the playing field, and your freedom from what other people think about you would light the pathway out of hell.” 
― Shannon L. Alder

HOPE

“Those who make us believe that anything’s possible and fire our imagination over the long haul, are often the ones who have survived the bleakest of circumstances. The men and women who have every reason to despair, but don’t, may have the most to teach us, not only about how to hold true to our beliefs, but about how such a life can bring about seemingly impossible social change. ” 
― Paul Rogat Loeb, The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear

“Strange as it may seem, I still hope for the best, even though the best, like an interesting piece of mail, so rarely arrives, and even when it does it can be lost so easily.” 
― Lemony Snicket

“Hope is such a beautiful word, but it often seems very fragile. Life is still being needlessly hurt and destroyed.” 
― Michael Jackson

“Whether we wound or are wounded, the blood that flows is red.” 
― Eiichiro Oda

Pss.42:11 “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.”

Job 8:13 “So are the paths of all that forget God; and the hypocrite's hope shall perish:”

Quotation Saturday

1 Sam. 2:3 “Talk no more so exceeding proudly; let not arrogancy come out of your mouth: for the LORD is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed.”

DELUSION

“You will never find the real truth among people that are insecure or have egos to protect. Truth over time becomes either guarded or twisted as their perspective changes; it changes with the seasons of their shame, love, hope or pride.” 
― Shannon L. Alder

“In reading The History of Nations, we find that, like individuals, they have their whims and their peculiarities, their seasons of excitement and recklessness, when they care not what they do. We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first.” 
― Charles Mackay

“My father taught me that you can you read a hundred books on wisdom and write a hundred books on wisdom, but unless you apply what you learned then its only words on a page. Life is not lived with intentions, but action.” 
― Shannon L. Alder

“In dream, delusion, and fantasy, exist man’s next best reality: that place where he is the creator of his own worlds; where he builds, learns, discovers and entertains; is master of all outcomes, his own god of destiny, and thus the student of his own evolving and ever uncertain truth.” 
― Duane Hewitt

ARROGANCE

“When you think yours is the only true path you forever chain yourself to judging others and narrow the vision of God. The road to righteousness and arrogance is a parallel road that can intersect each other several times throughout a person's life. It’s often hard to recognize one road from another. What makes them different is the road to righteousness is paved with the love of humanity. The road to arrogance is paved with the love of self.” 
~ Shannon L. Alder

“Arrogance is a creature. It does not have senses.
It has only a sharp tongue and the pointing finger.” 
~ Toba Beta

“Be careful not to mistake insecurity and inadequacy for humility! Humility has nothing to do with the insecure and inadequate! Just like arrogance has nothing to do with greatness!” 
― C. JoyBell C.

“Patriotism ... is a superstition artificially created and maintained through a network of lies and falsehoods; a superstition that robs man of his self-respect and dignity, and increases his arrogance and conceit.” 
― Emma Goldman

“Arrogance is someone claiming to have come to Christ, but they won't spend more than five minutes listening to your journey because they are more concerned about their own well being, rather than being a true disciple of Christ. Blessed is the person that takes the time to heal and hear another person so they can move on.” 
― Shannon L. Alder

CONCEIT

“Time and time again does the pride of man influence his very own fall. While denying it, one gradually starts to believe that he is the authority, or that he possesses great moral dominion over others, yet it is spiritually unwarranted. By that point he loses steam; in result, he falsely begins trying to prove that unwarranted dominion by seizing the role of a condemner.” 
― Criss Jami

“If a man thinks he is not conceited, he is very conceited indeed.” 
― C.S. Lewis

“He thinks the sun comes up just to hear him crow.” 
― Charles Martin

“Why did you come in to-night with your heads in the air? 'Make way, we are coming! Give us every right and don't you dare breathe a word before us. Pay us every sort of respect, such as no one's ever heard of, and we shall treat you worse than the lowest lackey!' They strive for justice, they stand on their rights, and yet they've slandered him like infidels in their article. We demand, we don't ask, and you will get no gratitude from us, because you are acting for the satisfaction of your own conscience! Queer sort of reasoning!... He has not borrowed money from you, he doesn't owe you anything, so what are you reckoning on, if not his gratitude? So how can you repudiate it? Lunatics! They regard society as savage and inhuman, because it cries shame on the seduced girl; but if you think society inhuman, you must think that the girl suffers from the censure of society, and if she does, how is it you expose her to society in the newspapers and expect her not to suffer? Lunatics! Vain creatures! They don't believe in God, they don't believe in Christ! Why, you are so eaten up with pride and vanity that you'll end by eating up one another, that's what I prophesy. Isn't that topsy-turvydom, isn't it infamy?” 
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“Arrogance is perhaps the most socially acceptable form of sin in the church today. In this culture of abundance, one of the only ways Satan can keep Christians neutralized is to wrap us up in pride. Conceit slips in like drafts of cold air in the winter. We don't see it, but outsiders can sense it.” 
― David Kinnaman

HYPOCRISY

“Often those that criticise others reveal what he himself lacks.” 
― Shannon L. Alder

“I wore black because I liked it. I still do, and wearing it still means something to me. It's still my symbol of rebellion -- against a stagnant status quo, against our hypocritical houses of God, against people whose minds are closed to others' ideas.” 
― Johnny Cash

“He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it.” 
― George Orwell

“Those who plead their cause in the absence of an opponent can invent to their heart's content, can pontificate without taking into account the opposite point of view and keep the best arguments for themselves, for aggressors are always quick to attack those who have no means of defence.” 
― Christine de Pizan

“To pretend, I actually do the thing: I have therefore only pretended to pretend.” 
― Jacques Derrida

ACTION

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” 
― Mahatma Gandhi

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” 
― Kurt Vonnegut

“Faith is about doing. You are how you act, not just how you believe.” 
― Mitch Albom

“People tend to be generous when sharing their nonsense, fear, and ignorance. And while they seem quite eager to feed you their negativity, please remember that sometimes the diet we need to be on is a spiritual and emotional one. Be cautious with what you feed your mind and soul. Fuel yourself with positivity and let that fuel propel you into positive action.” 
― Steve Maraboli

Quotation Saturday ~ Humanity

Pss.10:4 The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts.

HUMANITY

“You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is like an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi

“It's funny how humans can wrap their mind around things and fit them into their version of reality.”
~ Rick Riordan

“We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.”
~ Leo Tolstoy

“Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.”
~ Oscar Wilde

EQUALITY

“To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is man's injustice to woman. If by strength is meant brute strength, then, indeed, is woman less brute than man. If by strength is meant moral power, then woman is immeasurably man's superior. Has she not greater intuition, is she not more self-sacrificing, has she not greater powers of endurance, has she not greater courage? Without her, man could not be. If nonviolence is the law of our being, the future is with woman. Who can make a more effective appeal to the heart than woman?"
~ Mahatma Gandhi

“Equality is not a concept. It's not something we should be striving for. It's a necessity. Equality is like gravity. We need it to stand on this earth as men and women, and the misogyny that is in every culture is not a true part of the human condition. It is life out of balance, and that imbalance is sucking something out of the soul of every man and woman who's confronted with it. We need equality. Kinda now.”
~ Joss Whedon

“Wherever you find a great man, you will find a great mother or a great wife standing behind him -- or so they used to say. It would be interesting to know how many great women have had great fathers and husbands behind them.”
~ Dorothy L. Sayers

“All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others.”
~ Douglas Adams

TOLERANCE

“Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the wrong. Sometime in life you will have been all of these.”
~ Lloyd Shearer

“It is not for me to judge another man's life. I must judge, I must choose, I must spurn, purely for myself. For myself, alone.”
~ Hermann Hesse

“It's a universal law-- intolerance is the first sign of an inadequate education. An ill-educated person behaves with arrogant impatience, whereas truly profound education breeds humility.”
~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

“Christian, Jew, Muslim, shaman, Zoroastrian, stone, ground, mountain, river, each has a secret way of being with the mystery, unique and not to be judged”
~ Rumi

“Laws alone can not secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present his views without penalty there must be spirit of tolerance in the entire population.”
~ Albert Einstein

PREJUDICE

“Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilised by education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones.”
~ Charlotte Brontë

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
~ Martin Luther King Jr.

“There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.”
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change, for I seek the truth, by which no one was ever truly harmed. It is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance who is harmed.”
~ Marcus Aurelius

Prov. 8:13 “The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate.”

Quotation Saturday II

POPULAR

“Christ has not called us to be popular, but to be faithful. We are not saved to be relevant to the crowds; we are saved to reflect Christ.”
~ Dillon Burroughs

“If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war. If the government is inefficient, top-heavy, and tax-mad, better it be all those than that people worry over it. Peace, Montag. Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them so damned full of 'facts' they feel stuffed, but absolutely 'brilliant' with information. Then they'll feel they're thinking, they'll get a sense of motion without moving. And they'll be happy, because facts of that sort don't change.”
~ Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

“Popular culture is a place where pity is called compassion, flattery is called love, propaganda is called knowledge, tension is called peace, gossip is called news, and auto-tune is called singing.”
~ Criss Jami

“As individuals die every moment, how insensitive and fabricated a love it is to set aside a day from selfish routine in prideful, patriotic commemoration of tragedy. Just as God is provoked by those who tithe simply because they feel that they must tithe, I am provoked by those who commemorate simply because they feel that they must commemorate.”
~ Criss Jami

UNPOPULAR

“Hanging with people who make you feel unappreciated, for the mere sake of appearing to be popular, is the loneliest place to be.”
~ Ellen J. Barrier

“Your crown is in the place that has the least crowd”
~ Constance Chuks Friday

“Stark truth, is seldom met with open arms.”
~ Justin K. McFarlane Beau

“Sometimes broken hearts are needed, that way you will appreciate the one that handles it with care.”
~ Lilly Ghalichi

ARROGANCE

“Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size.”
~ Virginia Woolf

“Be careful not to mistake insecurity and inadequacy for humility! Humility has nothing to do with the insecure and inadequate! Just like arrogance has nothing to do with greatness!”
~ C. JoyBell

“When you think yours is the only true path you forever chain yourself to judging others and narrow the vision of God. The road to righteousness and arrogance is a parallel road that can intersect each other several times throughout a person's life. It’s often hard to recognize one road from another. What makes them different is the road to righteousness is paved with the love of humanity. The road to arrogance is paved with the love of self.”
~ Shannon L. Alder

“Patriotism ... is a superstition artificially created and maintained through a network of lies and falsehoods; a superstition that robs man of his self-respect and dignity, and increases his arrogance and conceit.”
~ Emma Goldman

CONCEIT

“Arrogance is perhaps the most socially acceptable form of sin in the church today. In this culture of abundance, one of the only ways Satan can keep Christians neutralized is to wrap us up in pride. Conceit slips in like drafts of cold air in the winter. We don't see it, but outsiders can sense it.”
~ David Kinnaman

“Time and time again does the pride of man influence his very own fall. While denying it, one gradually starts to believe that he is the authority, or that he possesses great moral dominion over others, yet it is spiritually unwarranted. By that point he loses steam; in result, he falsely begins trying to prove that unwarranted dominion by seizing the role of a condemner.”
~ Criss Jami

“He thinks the sun comes up just to hear him crow.”
~ Charles Martin

“Social media has infected the world with a sickening virus called vanity.”
~ Kellie Elmore