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Surrendered to Love
by Jeannie Pallett
The inspiration for the title of this column comes from the experiences of a friend. She has been a widow for seven years and while at times it seemed this day would never come, her days of grieving have just ended. Recently she realized she had received the gracious gift of joy to replace her mourning and was ready to turn the pages of life and enter into a new season of joy and fulfillment. Joy came quietly, unexpectedly and was received with great appreciation. On her part, it took patience over the years to allow the grief process to heal her heart and yet she did, and because she did not try to disrupt or shorten the process, today she is whole, her heart is full of joy and a desire to surrender to love.
She can tell you that the love of God has been her mainstay the entire time. I learned from her that the product of the process is well worth feeling the pain and not trying to rush through it. I marvelled at her, prayed for her through her process of mourning, and know that as a woman, her character has been enriched and she has been emptied of grief and sadness in order to be refilled with wonderful expressions of joy and creativity. She has allowed God to establish her through difficult circumstances and she sings a song of His great love and how He has turned her mourning to dancing. How else shall we dance with the fullness of joy and hopeful exultation unless we have known despair? How shall we have beauty for ashes save for the fire of refinement?
It was hard for her to endure and submit to the process of grief but today her character more closely resembles the Image of the Son. In her times of difficulty she surrendered to love, she yielded so that her Heavenly Father could have the right of way in every aspect of her life. When her strength was gone, she depended on His strength to see her through. What an amazing testimony her life is of the faithfulness of God. I have seen answers to her prayers that are spectacular as well as simple.
I have learned that bypassing the process impedes the growth that God wants to develop in our lives. My life has been enriched by her friendship as I have learned lessons from her that she had no idea she was teaching. It is amazing how our lives affect someone else's. We have no idea the impact our actions, attitudes, and behaviours have on someone else; we do not know when people are looking at us - and yet we ought always to be aware that there are no shadows we can hide in if we have made a decision to walk in the Light as He is in the Light.
We surrender to love - we surrender and give up the right to live our lives the way that pleases us and yield to the working of the Father's hands as He shapes and fashions us to bear the Image of the Son. We surrender to love, that we may be enabled to live a life of love, freely and generously sharing it with others.
We surrender to love and just fall back and rest in the embrace of our God. Will God give her a partner with whom to share the rest of her life? We will have to wait and see but in the meantime consider the thought that the highest purpose of our lives is to surrender to love. We are enabled and equipped to love others when we surrender to the love of God, and that love will mirror the love with which He first loved us.
His heart is yearning to walk in close fellowship with us, His heart is yearning to be one with us, so let us each ask Him to fill our hearts, fill them to the brim so that they overflow with grace and mercy, love and joy. He is looking for a relationship with us that is deep, intimate, and intensely personal. This is easy for Him because He knows all things but we need to develop that depth of personal intimacy with Him.
Let us ask Him to orchestrate our days so that they resonate unity; they are lived in unison with the plans and purposes He has established for us. Let there be a great readiness within our hearts and souls to live in the ways He has established for us, a great readiness to accomplish the plans and purposes He has for us.
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