(The Twelve Ways of Christmas, Part 1: The Way of Surrender)
Journal entry – December 10 – Today I leave my family and the security of the familiar. I go to have questions answered, knowing that I may only come away with more questions than answers. I go to be healed, knowing that the process will carry me through more pain than perhaps I have ever known. I go to learn how to break the cycle of false intimacy and shame, knowing that the price for this so-called “true intimacy” may mean the disruption of every significant relationship I have. But go I must. I have covered some of my confusion in lies just to get to this point. My defenses have been forced to surrender, even as my addictive personality continues to cry out, “I want to live!” I go to get “well” today. And I’ve never been more frightened in my life.
Darla White stares at a random spot on the wall of her new home-away-from-home – a two-bed, dorm-style room where she is the only resident for now. Past the denial, beyond the multiple fantasies of suicide, the grief of losing her 11-year-old daughter, and the months of memories lost to alcohol and prescription drug addiction, Darla is a shell of the woman she once was.
Nobody’s calling her “Supergirl” now, she thinks sadly, as she catches a glimpse of her hollow expression in the mirror. And it’s just as well. She had grown way-past-weary of being awesome for everybody else, and feeling as though no one was even remotely interested in her pain, her dreams, or her sense of being a complete fraud.
She’s too humiliated to face her friends at church. Too ashamed to admit to the high school girls’ discipleship group she co-leads that she has nothing to offer with integrity. Too embarrassed that her own remaining children – a 14-year-old son and a 12-year-old daughter – have caught the dregs of her addiction and despair.
And now, in a strange city, as the doors close behind her, she faces the prospect of Christmas alone.
She faces the uncomfortable hope that the end of the story has not been told about her yet.
And she faces the terror of discovering that somebody can know all there is to know about her, and love her anyway.
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. And in other news, Darla White has surrendered.
The Catalyst
Just yesterday, Darla and her husband Carl sat in church, where they were reminded of another act of surrender. In fact, Mary’s story was the final confirmation among many that Darla was making the right decision.
In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”
”How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called[a] the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God.”
“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it be to me as you have said.” Then the angel left her.
Pastor Wilcox had described the give-and-take dialogue between a teenage girl in what amounted to a backwoods Israeli down and a real-life angel named Gabriel. The angel greets Mary, and she “keeps pondering what kind of statement this is.” Gabriel makes the joyous announcement of the coming birth of Jesus. Mary asks, “How can this be?” Gabriel then explains, and gives the pregnancy of Elizabeth as a confirming sign that with God, nothing is impossible.
Every Jewish girl dreamed of growing up to be the mother of the Messiah. None – none – of them had any idea it would go down like this.
“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it be to me as you have said.”
This was no whimsical “Alrighty then.” This was an agreement for which, though she was blessed, Mary’s soul would be raked with sorrow. It was a step of faith, with no clear understanding of exactly how God would make all this work out.
This was surrender. And like Darla’s, or yours or mine, Mary’s submission to the Lord has three dimensions:
1. Surrender to the greater certainty.
Mary was a ponderer. What she didn’t understand, she didn’t just dismiss out of hand. She stored things in her heart. She gave God time to make sense out of those things that didn’t make sense at the moment. In doing so, she was saying, in effect, “I don’t understand this. But what I am not certain about in my circumstances, I am certain about with God.” God was her greater certainty, and she chose to trust Him.
Like Darla had done for a while, many people try to make sense of the insanity that is their life. They want to see the map, and photos of the scenery along the pathway to hope and healing before they commit to it. In great wisdom, the Lord says no. “Trust Me,” He says. “Turn your life and will over to My care. Surrender to what you can see in My heart, not what you can predict of My ways.”
The reality is, if you’re looking for guarantees, you’re only feeding the crazy beast. The Way of Surrender is your only gateway to freedom.
2. Surrender to the sobering reality.
Mary was no fool. She understood the social consequences of a pregnancy out of wedlock. Her act of surrender was a statement of faith in God that He could and would provide the grace to cover and the strength to respond to those details. Did Mary have it all worked out? No. But she was willing to take one day at a time and didn’t borrow trouble from tomorrow.
I find it interesting that Gabriel didn’t soften the sell to get Mary to go along. Couldn’t God have said, “Okay, Mary, I’m entering you in the Mother-of-the-Messiah Relocation Program” and hurled her off to Jericho or somewhere? Of course. But He didn’t. There was no “Easy Button.” The way out was the way through.
And that’s the sobering reality of the Way of Surrender. There usually isn’t an Undo key, or a trap door of escape. To experience the fullness of the healing, the restoration, or even the joy of a new beginning, we have some walking out to do. And the greater the prize, the more exacting the tests along the way. Surrender is no place for cowards.
3. Surrender to the possibilities.
Is it okay for God to work outside the boundaries of what you consider probable, or possible? Mary said yes. And that looks easy with hindsight and on paper. But the honest truth is, many times we feel safer with a more predictable, “controllable” life. To surrender to the possibilities means being willing to be stretched. To go beyond our own control, willing to embrace an adventure with God that can be at once exhilarating and terrifying.
You don’t have to be a recovering addict like Darla to come face-to-face with the fear of success. Great open doors excite some people; others prefer the mold (and moldiness) of the familiar. The Way of Surrender asks, not just that you take your hands off the wheel, but that you also take your foot off the brake and accelerator. Don’t just let God steer – let Him pace you as well. Oh, and while you’re at it, why don’t you just go ahead and give up the word, “Impossible?”
Just as He did with Mary, God comes to you and me with a plan, a promise, and a call to surrender. And that plan is based, not on our righteousness, worthiness, or ability, but on His. But He does ask that we submit. To the greater certainty. To the sobering reality. To the possibilities. In doing so, we discover a rare form of freedom.
This is good news. This is great joy. And it’s available to all people – even you.
This is the Way of Surrender.
This is the Way of Christmas.
