surrender.

Darkness has crept in. Sitting tucked away in a cozy little breakfast nook, staring out over a city twinkling with lights, my heart is full. My life is full. There is so much I would say...would write....and yet it almost feels as if the words are more than I can grasp. This diamond lit world that I currently find myself in is singing of Christmas, stockings, crisp air fat with the smell of cinnamon and cloves, and of a God who is wonderful beyond anything I'll ever be able to describe. And words are simply not enough to convey just how much I love this life I've been blessed with. I am in awe of how blessed I am.....more than I'll ever be able to deserve.

So, as I sit and think of all He has given, of all He has taken, and how wonderful both have turned out to be, what I feel is loved by this God who has seen fit to make this life mine. There is a pressing, a pushing, an urgency to know Him more. I have known what it is to pull away, to scream and yell and only have that one word before my eyes: Why? Yet, beyond that one word, beyond all I thought I could not find my way through, beyond that place of utter defeat, beyond the end of all I am, there is this place. This place of being wrapped tight in His arms, of knowing a love for Him like I've never felt before, and this is worth every single painful moment. To surrender what I long for most in this world is worth having a deeper love for Him spring out of the surrender. It's one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, looking up into His eyes and unclenching the hands that held onto the desire so hard. Like a child holding fists full of stones, He gently asked if I would not open my hands to Him that He might replace the stones grasped so tight with rubies that burn with a fire piercing straight into my heart. And the letting go took far longer than I like to admit, and the pain was terrible as one by one, my fingers began to loosen their grip.

Sitting here now, I know there will be many, many more things, probably much bigger than this current one, that I'll have to surrender in the future. I hope when that surrender becomes necessary again, I will look and see the rubies of past things surrendered still burning brightly in my soul....and perhaps, this will give me more courage to surrender once again the stones He would replace with so much more.

It is a wonderful, beautiful thing, to sit tucked away, watching dancing lights, letting words float in and out of your mind. Like the words to a hauntingly beautiful melody, sung long ago but now forgotten they linger here and there. Far below where I sit, a river stretches out into the cold, starlight, Tennessee night, singing the old forgotten ballad of long ago. And Christmas begins to creep softly into the air around me once more, reminding me that this is the most wonderful time of the year. Whispering of a baby surrendered from Heaven and of how that surrender changed the course of my life and the history of a world that has forgotten the baby surrendered....forgotten the ballad the river sings to its Creator. Yet, still the Creator of the river who sings, the Father who surrendered His Son, the One who has stolen my heart away, still He is here. Beyond being forgotten, beyond not being heard, beyond not being believed in, still, He is here.

Black trees reach darkened branches to the sky. Lights in a home below are turned off. And I sit, staring down upon the lights of a city that I adore, in my Tennessee home where those I love sleep. I know that all I would say will not be said tonight. Yet, this is joy itself, to be surrounded by Him and those I hold so dear.....this is a life that is overflowing...

© Jade Valcarcel 2012. All rights reserved