SURRENDER....TO PRAYER

                                              

I met a woman recently who said that after many years of being alone and many unsuccessful relationships; she just didn’t have the energy to keep doing what she had been doing. She realised that her fatigue came from a place deep within her being. It was beyond physical exhaustion, it was beyond emotional lethargy, it was deeper, much deeper.  Her sense was that she was spiritually bankrupt, her soul was depleted, and that no amount of rest would soothe that weariness.

The solution, she suggested, was to recognise that everything she had been doing to that point was not a waste of time, but had failed to provide her with her expected outcome. In that realisation came relief, she said. It was soothing yet strangely freeing to recognise that it was OK to admit that sometimes even with the best of intentions, the subsequent outcomes are, not be as we planned!

 So with that awakening, she knew in her heart that true to that saying “:

 “If you always do what you always did you will always get what you always got”

 That she needed a new approach, so she PRAYED.

 Not such a new concept I thought, somewhat cynically. Then I thought, when was the last time I prayed from a place of gratitude and not just:  “Hullo my Higher Power, Cherrie here (remember me??!!) Well I have a massive favour to ask...blah blah blah... Yes, I have been very guilty of the LAST RESORT PRAYER!

This woman said she decided to not to just pray for help, but that her words would be filled with gratitude and love. Words that celebrated her and the people in her life.  She said that there was no need to only pray when life was tough or intolerable, but rather to see prayer as a conversation and a dialogue between her and her higher power. Together they would move in a dance towards peace and a life where struggle was only the measure of the lack of surrender...

Hmmm  interesting concept! I thought about this long after our chat.

Could my own experience of spiritual bankruptcy be a direct result of my unwillingness to surrender the tasks that I try valiantly to control, to my higher power? As this idea grew in clarity, I began to imagine my life unencumbered by the exertion of always overthinking, over analysing, over doing, over stepping in so many facets of my own, and others lives.

It became very attractive to me to think of living in a place emotionally and spiritually, where I felt safe to accept that I would always be looked after. A place where I was free to accept that for which I had responsibility and to take ownership for that. To release everything else to my higher power to hold, to cradle in the palm of its hand, while I rested.

The more I pondered this phenomenon of surrender, which is a massive exercise in trust, the more it began to gain weight with me as a valuable life tool. What if I prayed, not in that begging- for- help –last- resort- fashion, but to give myself permission to let go occasionally and accept that the load does not have to sit only on my shoulders? What would it look like, feel like, to accept that I don’t have to struggle?

So began a new seed of thinking. I spoke to my inner self, my higher power and listened to the messages. I came to know that my way was not wrong, there is no blame, but there are other paths to explore.

It is not easy to sit with new thought patterns or to implement new behaviours. There are times when the changes I am trying to achieve seem too remote, not attainable. Sometime I shout at my higher power and demand to know WHY I don’t always get the outcomes I yearn for. But my higher power is a patient and wise voice who knows me well! It sits quietly and listens to my impatience and petulance, and just loves me and unconditionally accepts my humanness.

The outcomes I get are always the ones I need. Not always the ones I want!

They may be challenging, uncomfortable, painful even, but when I allow myself to sit in their presence, open my mind and my heart to them, I sometimes find myself in the space of surrender or acceptance that there is indeed a lesson to be observed, and hopefully learnt.

Nothing that ever happens is random. Everything is a possibility for growth, and an opportunity to take my spiritually from bankruptcy to profit!

More and more I receive messages affirming that I will be OK. I don’t know how to interpret some of it and I still have my challenges. I am often tempted to dip my toe back into past patterns, just because they feel familiar, and they don’t challenge me. But I am soon reminded that if that way had served me, then I would have been more peaceful, more complete.

For now, I strive to implement new ways of being and allow the peace of surrender to wash over me. I choose to bathe in trust and know that through my surrender to prayer, I am affirming that I believe that I will be safe and that Life only wants the best for me......

.