True Surrender

Getting older isn’t just about a cumulative store of wisdom that you can draw on. Wisdom means nothing until you make the choice to employ it. There’s a preferred expression I use: “take my advice, I’m not using it.” Recently I’ve been feeling like a hypocrite; the words I speak to others seem to resonate deep within my soul. All this great advice I have to share and yet I cast it aside like a fool.The truth be known, it’s easy to give advice when making a choice or taking action is the choice of the person you’re speaking with. The fear of self-application can immobilize a person into a life of solitude.

I have spent the last 15 years, or so, growing in many ways. That is a fact that cannot be disputed. The areas where I have failed to grow have been due to a consuming fear that has paralyzed my growth in the area of  relationships. Some people make it into the “sphere of trust,” but there has always been an inherent dread of the possibility that pain may penetrate that sphere. What I’ve come to realize recently, however is that my fear of being hurt has caused me to build a fortress around my heart that is virtually impenetrable. The sad thing is that I have conquered nothing by building walls. I’ve barricaded myself with my fears.

Believing I had surrendered to the false power I allowed fear to have over me did allow some growth but I have realized that we cannot love or allow ourselves to be loved until we acknowledge that there will be pain in all relationships and that is life – and it isn’t life threatening. Not all future relationships will turn out the same as those of the past and not everyone from our past is responsible for the pain suffered at someone else’s hand. The pain of our past cannot kill us unless we allow it to live on inside us – and that, my friends, is a slow and treacherous way to go. Where is the wisdom in that?

Try as hard as you might, you cannot move on from the past until the fear that the past will repeat itself is conquered. What conquers fear? Surrender. True surrender conquers fear. True surrender is not just a feeling. True surrender is born from a choice to believe that even if what you fear most happens, you will not only survive it, you can thrive  because of it – if you so choose.

We were made for each other. You can’t be there for anyone if you hide away in self-imposed solitude. Your pain has a purpose – Someone else out there IS exactly where you have been. Don’t waste your past pain – use it as a healing balm and apply it to someone else with love.

The wall I once built for protection has hemmed me in; my surrender will break it down and keep it down.