Surrender

12 April 2020

Surrender – blissful and terrifying surrender. This daunting concept first captivated my attention ten years ago during a birthing class.

In this class, the notion of surrender was raised in relation to the fear women often experience during labour. The basic idea was that rather than giving way to the pain and discomfort of labour, you surrender to, or give in to, what your body is independently doing in labour.

The idea was that you can surrender to the process your body is engaged in; you can give control back over to your body with confidence, because although labour is not comfortable, although it is hard, your body in labour is usually trustworthy and “knows” what it is doing and, most importantly, your body can usually birth your baby so much more easily if you are not afraid, if indeed, you are relaxed.

Grasping hold of surrender in labour means acknowledging on some level that the pain and hard work of labour has a very good purpose, that being to bring forth new life into the world.

And so, in the days after my post last week reflecting on agency and control I found myself fixated again on this concept of surrender.

This week I found myself beginning to wonder, rather than going around in circles with the stress, and the frustration and the “It’s too hard! I can’t do it!” …what if I just surrendered to it all?

I don’t mean give in so much as refusing to give up. What if I resisted the temptation to panic and instead decided to trust that come what may, all will be well.

What if I did not give way to fear? What if I accepted the situation for what it is and chose to trust and believe that these hard times and challenges are not without purposes which may be hidden but are good and which refine and transform me as I trust my Creator in all things?

What if I did that?