There is a story that accompanies the preceding piece. The surrender referred to was long in coming, and the battle, though only internal, was not an easy one. But I have come to see it was necessary, and the freedom I am experiencing is the sweetest I have ever known.
For I am a settler married to a true pioneer. A pioneer in heart and mind, who does not have a reason to live if not forging ahead. I, on the other hand, move slowly, take more than a bit of time to survey my surroundings and put down my roots, but once my roots are down, they hold firm.
Over time I began to comprehend that our pattern, David’s and mine, was quite literally one in which about the time I had finally been somewhere long enough to put down my roots, make friends, feel like I was getting established, my pioneer beloved was looking at the sky, studying the movement of the clouds, testing the direction of the wind. And I could see it was soon going to be time to pull up our stakes and move on.
I reflected often on the fact that, in the universal magnetism that causes opposites to be attracted to each other, my dedication to the Lord in my youth led me to the ardently questing pioneer I saw in David, keenly aware of my own orientation toward settling and instinctively drawn to this counterweight to my potential complacency of spirit. I also reflected often, especially in recent years, how incredibly much richer I was in life and in personhood because of our journey together, because of his undying quest for the fulfillment of God’s purpose in our lives.
When in 1999 we came upon our “Psalm 23” land, both the settler and the pioneer in us found a most amazing synchronism, and the years following were for me filled with self-discovery, God-discovery, and delight as it appeared we had found the balance of my dream of building a sense of place for our children and grandchildren, and a base from which to make any number of outbound pioneer ventures. We came into a harmonious rhythm of travel and home, California, Israel, even visits to Australia added to our already established family ties in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Indiana. And no matter where we went, there were the dear familiar gardens, paths, woodland streams, fruit trees, and beloved books, paintings, comfy corners and favorite reading chairs to come HOME to.
Then came the Great Shaking, the year 2009 that will go into our personal histories as the year, for David, that “his engine was disconnected from the train” and we embarked quite unwillingly on a season in which our lives were not our own to direct.
Coming out on the other end of that season, it became abundantly apparent to my disbelieving heart that my pioneer husband could not see us resuming our lives as they had been. I loved our life. But once again, the upward call mattered to him more than anything else in the world. Or more accurately, years ago he set himself to follow the One who is Life, and now once again he heard that One calling.
And for the first time in my life, I recognized in myself the very real capacity to say No to the Lord of my life.
I did not at first see the real crux of the choice for what it was. I stood for all the noble and faithful and inspiring principles of our commitment and our calling as it had come to be defined. I argued that the present felt dried up not because God was leading us onward but because we had been so traumatized and disconnected and needed to reengage, reinvest, redefine our purpose. I longed with everything in me, after what felt like the relentless battering of months of stormy winds, to return to the sweet haven of life resumed, normalcy, productivity, and fruitfulness. And home.
With ALMOST everything in me. There was still a place in my heart that the Faithful One knew was tucked down deep, and He was not going to leave it untended.
One evening this summer, 2010, sitting in the presence of the Lord with a few others in a time of quiet “soaking”, my heart was opened, and I understood all at once that I was also being called by the One who calls, and that He had in fact been calling me for many, many months. Loudly, softly, with words, without words, calling and then waiting with unending patience, nudging, then waiting, whispering, then waiting, lining my path with lovely invitations, watching while I ignored them all.
There had been my father’s often-repeated words quoting his father’s: “I never lived in a place I didn’t enjoy, and I never lived in a place I could not leave.” There was February in Florida, sitting with David’s parents watching the winter Olympics, David switched channels for just a moment and fell into the Diary of Anne Frank, a scene with the unhappy couple hidden with them in the attic, the husband mourning his wife’s stubbornness, having long before that refused to flee while there was opportunity: “You could not leave your dishes and your things…”
There was the unwelcome but persistent memory of that poem I had written fifteen years previous, awakened by one of those midnight revelations in which I saw our journey of the past twenty years so marked with the constant nearness of the Lord that I saw HE was my home more than any address we had ever had; it had been a realization so forceful that I got up and with random pen and paper squeezed into the laundry room of our apartment in Antioch, Tennessee, and wrote of God being my home here on earth, with a peace wrapped then in awe and wonder. The revelation of heaven’s nearness no matter where we were over the years had illuminated my understanding like a beacon. But that was then, I felt, and this was now; I had completed that “phase” of my life.
But now I saw, in opening up my hands to receive the gift of a home and land from my Father, had my fingers closed around the gift? Had it gone from being His to Ours to Mine? In fact, if He was calling us onward, or even if my beloved thought He was calling us onward, and I could not lay down what I considered a gift from my Father, then had not the gift become more important to me than the Giver? If that were true, then the gift had become an idol.
The words my father loved called to me: “I have fought the good fight; I have FINISHED the race”; and I knew a good start was important, but meant little unless the race was completed. I thought of Solomon, Rehoboam, Asa, Hezekiah, who started out strong but faltered and dropped out in the end. “Be faithful UNTO DEATH, and I will give you the crown of life.” “For our citizenship is in heaven…” “For here we have no continuing city…” “You are not your own; you have been bought with a price…” “These are those…who did not love their life to the death.”
But most of all, I saw the body of Christ torn and bleeding, the “veil” through which I passed at my second birth. It cost Him His life, it cost Him His own will to become my salvation, and how could I then think I could hold onto my will? The very greatest mark distinguishing the believer from the unbeliever is this laying down of one’s right to self-determination, to yield to the will of One greater. To belong to this One and call Him Lord has always meant no longer being a sheep turning to my own way. My own way was only an option if I was no longer following my Shepherd.
And then I remembered the words of Jesus, that the one born of the spirit is like the wind, blown here and blown there. I remembered His invitation to come to Him and be filled with His living Spirit that would flow from the innermost being. Flowing, blowing, living, breathing I saw all in a rush were linked entirely to yieldedness, surrender, the opposite of the rigid stiffness that comes with atrophy of body or stubbornness of soul.
Outside the quiet room where we sat, surrounded by worship and candlelight, was the music of a forest stream, and I saw clearly that eternal life is a yielded life, a life that remains supple, that can be directed like the wind or like a flowing stream.
And with that realization, as this poem says, I surrendered.
It is hard to describe the immediate lightness of my spirit, so exhilarating I felt nearly that I could fly, like I had been cut free from a tether, and the joy and the freedom were nearly intoxicating. I felt like Pilgrim at the cross, whose heavy load carried on his back for the entirety of his long journey broke away and went tumbling down the long mountain and he was free! Free from the fight for my future, my responsibility, my material possessions, my this and my that, my-my-my and me, and free to just say Yes! and enter in with my whole being to the invitation being extended to a future defined by Someone bigger than myself, who loves me with a patience beyond comprehending.
The part that brings me to tears is that this season defined by Him is filled to the brim with gifts and opportunities and surprises that I could not have dreamed of, that are sweeter than anything I even knew to imagine, gifts that are refreshing long-dormant places in my heart, in our relationship, in both of our walks with God.
I am getting to see what I would have missed had I continued to hold out for what I understood. More than ever before, I am in awe of His kindness, His patience, and the depth of His love that only seeks our greatest good. With everything in me, I want never again to drift from this place in which I have been set free to move, to be led, to follow, to flow, to yield, to trust, to surrender to such a One; I want only to come even more fully into this yieldedness for the rest of my life.
Because once again, I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back.
