Relationship Surrendering

This week, my friend Amber's Journey of Faith Friday focuses on a time of our life when we had to surrender something to the Lord.

With my little one on my lap and the week coming to a close, I thought I'd take a couple of minutes to reflect on this (before feeding, giving her a bath and putting her to bed)

Well, many of you know that I am a control freak. I love to have things under control and know exactly what is coming next. The problem comes when I realize that God's really in control and I can never know exactly what is coming next.

This leads to many, many times of surrendering. I could expound more on surrendering my fears of this summer financially, or surrendering my daughter over to Him on a regular basis, but I'll take you back to a different time...

John and I started dating in October of 2006. In November, we knew we were going to be together forever...meaning, we knew we were going to marry each other.

I know this sounds crazy, but God just made it very apparent. Actually, what happened was the week of Thanksgiving, my parents came to visit, meeting John for the first time. I remember dropping John off at his apartment after going out for dinner with my parents, and, before he went up, he kissed me goodnight and said "I am going to marry you." I giggled and said, "Yeah, I want to marry you too." To which he said, "No, I said I'm GOING to marry you." Eek. He was a determined man, that's for sure!

Well, November came and went without a proposal (which I wasn't expecting yet, of course) But then so did December, January, February, March, April, May, June, July...you get the point. Here we were knowing we were going to get married and this man was really taking his time! Didn't he know that after the engagement I would still need TIME to PLAN a wedding?! It's not like we'd be married the next day!!

I remember times of frustration, when I know he felt it, when I nagged him and whined but all mostly without words. Just with a sulky attitude as month after month passed. I loved this man and he loved me...why weren't we getting engaged?! I wanted to talk wedding plans and I couldn't do much of that without a ring on my finger, now could I?

I know, patience really isn't a virtue of mine when it comes to wanting to control the future and wanting to plan, plan, plan.

I believe it was sometime the end of August of 2007 or the beginning of September when I thought I was beginning to surrender the whole thing over to God. Then my brother proposed to his girlfriend. And some good friends of ours got engaged as well. The sulking began again.

I began to really awaken to how ridiculous I was being! I was going to CR at the time and it opened up a whole part of me that I didn't even realize I had problems with, and that was of feeling insecure. I didn't think I was insecure but realized in my wanting to control everything, I was actually just really insecure about myself and well, insecure in how God could do things better.

About the middle of October I really felt like I was surrendering everything over to God. John and I were coming up on our 1 year anniversary (of dating) and even though a part of me wanted to think that we could be engaged at that time, I suppressed it and finally was able to feel peace and COMPLETELY surrender my relationship with John to God.

Sure enough, come the end of October, the day after our 1 year anniversary (of course I had to wait that extra day, haha) John proposed. He had been so faithful to listen to God's timing and when it felt right to get engaged. And he was right. I had the perfect amount of time to plan a June wedding. And had we gotten married any sooner, it just would have been too soon. John knew that. And so did God (I guess that goes without saying). It just took me awhile to figure it out, too.

It took me completely surrendering the relationship to God first. Complete surrender.

I'm, of course, still learning this, but God's good and gently leads me back every time. I'm so thankful for His grace!!