A Sacred Surrender

I've been more absent than present from the social scene.  The online social scene as well as the "real-life" social scene.   I was super weary of reading some of the things we have allowed ourselves (our nation and the world) to fall prey to.  So rather than staying angry at the ridiculousness of so much of it, I bowed out.

In life reflection and examination (what I think writers constantly do), I learned something about myself:  When things get to be too much for me, I bow out.  

It was during a movie I came to this realization.  Jeff and I were watching an old western movie one night and I didn't like where it was headed.  There was about to be too much drama for me to handle.  I can't remember what movie--but the same thing happens when Marshall Dillon or Festus gets into a pickle (a difficult situation).  Anyway, I got up pretending to just go to the kitchen sink to put our empty plates and then moseyed on back to get my shower.  I was done with the movie.  I'd let them get out of the predicament without me looking on.  

I don't like looking on--much less being in the front seat of drama.  I will bow out.  I've had way too much to actually sit through any of it willingly.  Especially when I see the exit sign.  I told someone yesterday it seemed like so many people had become drama driven.  Ugh.  It makes me tired.

Now before you think for one second I won't fight for what's mine or what I believe in, don't be mislead.  Movies don't matter.  Peoples lives do.  Their eternal destination does.  But that other stuff that doesn't matter one bit, as the saying goes, "Ain't nobody got time for that".

Which leads me to share with you some prayer journal details:

Changes in my life had catapulted me unceremoniously at the feet of Jesus with an undignified plop.  

I want to say it started on one particular day, but it didn't.  It was over half a lifetime of inching-- day by day, joy after joy, even crisis after crisis, getting close enough to hear His voice.   It wasn't like He was actually speaking with an audible voice, but it was with an urgent, relentless aching in my heart.  [Have you ever felt that?].  It wasn't like He had never spoke before, but it was me who had never been quiet enough, nor still enough to hear Him.

For years I drove about 45 minutes to work then back home again, listening to worship music, praying and often just listening to the Bible on CD in my car.  Sometimes I would find myself weeping before the LORD.   In those days of driving the maroon Isuzu, I felt like it was an altar of sorts.  A place of sacred prayer--where no one but God could hear me. [In all the years I had worked so far from home, I wish I had begun this habit of "drive-time-praying" at the onset.]  

One morning as I approached a busy intersection, I pulled myself out of the prayer realm and took note of where I was. My chest ached from crying and praying.  I had long stopped wearing makeup until I arrived at the office.  There was no need as I often cried it off.  But this morning....this particular morning, in what I call our tapestry of life, one thread in a thousand other colorful strings woven to bring me to where I am today, I saw a billboard that either was brand new, or I had missed it every morning for months until THIS particular day.  

     The billboard simply said:   IT'S MORE THAN INDIGESTION. 

The picture on the towering signage showed an opaque image of a doctor with a stethoscope, the background of a hospital emergency room, and big red letters. 

Since I was at a red light, I used that opportunity to snap a picture with my phone. It totally had my attention because I knew that what I was feeling inside was indeed more than indigestion. Those were days I saw many things as if they were clues to what God was doing.  I took many pictures; because with all the various things, they all seemed to be pointing me in one direction.   Surrender.  Even if it means some drama will be involved.

Many weeks later on a Wednesday night I left work and began my routine of praying the first few miles home.  It was dark by the time I arrived at the half-way point of the drive, and I was yet praying.  I remember this because I used the time at the red-light to grab my phone to make a call.  Somewhere on highway 231 near the small town of Campbellton, Florida, the Holy Spirit descended in my car and I will never forget that feeling.  The best way to describe it may not sound nice, but it was like I was about the throw-up or go-up.  I wasn't sure what was happening.  It wasn't a panic attack--I had had the not-so-pleasing effect of that feeling a few times.  This was not that.

I had a suspicion, but to be sure, I needed to call a friend.  He was more than a friend --he was an associate pastor and cousin to boot.  Something in me told me that he would know what was going on with me, as I had heard him testify enough of what it felt like when the Holy Spirit was churning in his own heart and life.

As the phone rang I realized it was Wednesday night and they were likely already in the sanctuary preparing for service.  With the connection like it is often in our little country areas, I heard a static fringed --"Hello?" just before I hung up the call.  I recognized the voice of our former pastor.  Another good friend.  But I couldn't speak.  My voice was completely locked up.  

"Hello?" he said again.  I got a few words out, enough for him to recognize it was me.  Alarm in his voice--"Ang--are you okay?"

"Yes, I think so--I feel ---I feel, I don't know what.  I've been praying and the Holy Spirit is here--and I can't--I don't-- I don't know what's going on.  I just need someone to pray with me that I'll know what to do."

"Ang--we will pray.  I think the LORD is doing something.  We'll be praying."  He stopped and prayed for me before he hung up, assuring he would pass the message on.

My prayer vigil of seeking and searching continued.  On another Wednesday night after leaving my ladies Bible Study class, I felt the Holy Spirit with me as I drove home.  I felt this unexplainable urgency within me—and my heart heard, "Will you follow Me?"  

The question burned in my chest and churned in my stomach.  I wept.  Tears stinging my eyes and distorting my vision.  I blinked hard.  As the liquid salty surrender spilled down my cheeks, I found myself raising my hand in the darkness, hidden from others, but fully seen by Him.  Cars passing with a swoosh on the wet pavement as the rains had begun while we were still in the classroom, and continued enough to necessitate the use of the wipers.  I just needed  some wipers for my eyes.

I felt caught up in another realm--perhaps between two.  I was driving, yet oblivious to anything except the presence of God on the drive home.

We were now entering the fall of 2009, just short months had passed since the death of my sister, Wanda, in  February of 2008.  That painful event had caused me to look deeper within my own life...which eventually led to my own death.  Not the 6 feet under - casket and cemetery type of death, but some of my old flesh dying away chunk by chunk--until it resulted into what I am today... a work in progress.

What is written in these stack of prayers and conversations with the LORD is my journey of faith.   I began documenting more than just sporadically in 2010.  They contain personal details that has transpired to land me on the mission field we had prayed for and dream of for years.  (If you are a regular reader for my "non-regular writing", you know how our plans changed to follow wherever He timed and purposed.  It's about HIS timing and purpose, not ours.)

This isn't the end destination.  No, not by a long shot.  This is part of the journey of obedience and surrender that has led to much learning more about the love our Heavenly Father has for all of us.  

In the pages of these books, I've journaled conversations I had with my Heavenly Father...wrapped in the river of tears I shed along the way, and the Word He fed me to keep me nourished and moving forward.

I have also found that sometimes in this journey, we backtrack to a place of remembrance to realign our focus, securing it to the ground beneath the cross....where I now sit.

Before you think for one second that it's been a totally sweet journey, let me remind you I'm so human I stink.  And I have stunk to God many times-- I am absolutely positive.....

But He is full of compassion, grace and mercy...and daily reminds me of His infinite love.  And the surrender continues.  Sometimes with some drama.  

There is no exit sign if you follow God.  Not until He calls us home.

Obediently His,

Angie

© Angie Knight 2021.  All rights reserved.  Photography belongs to Angie Knight unless otherwise indicated.  No portion of this devotion may be used without the express consent of the author.