Deliberate surrender

Posted by Kathryn Soper | January 18, 2009 | 24 Comments

There’s a woman in my ward named Joanne. She’s probably sixty-ish, but her smooth, rosy cheeks make her look much younger. Although stalwart in the gospel she rarely comes to church these days because of the effects of severe Type 1 diabetes. But once in a while I see her shuffling a slow course around our cul-de-sac, getting the exercise she needs to help the circulation in her swollen, pain-wracked legs. It takes her about fifteen minutes to complete the circle.

One morning I was outside with my preschoolers when she made her way past our yard, leaning on her husband for support. I told her I missed seeing her at church, and asked her how she was. She responded with one of her typical upbeat replies (the woman has the most positive attitude I’ve ever encountered). But then she paused for a moment. “You know,” she said, “this isn’t how I envisioned spending the rest of my life.”

I almost started to cry right there. Her words were so candid and poignant, so void of self-pity. And so evocative of the human condition. How many of us get exactly what we expect? How many of us come within spitting distance? How many of us find ourselves in a territory so foreign from what we envisioned, we sometimes wonder what force carried us hither and set us down to live, completely surprised, sometimes traumatized, and usually at least a little bit bewildered?

Joanne’s words made me think about the unexpected course of my own life. As is the case for all of us, the surprises have come through a mix of choice and circumstance. When I got married, I never thought I’d end up with seven children–but an unexpected, near-constant desire for children gripped me for a dozen years, and I chose to follow it, and mother nature cooperated, so here I am in a household of nine. When I was a child old enough to be self-aware, I never expected to live a life complicated by chronic depression, but I do (and so do two of my children). When I was a young adult and envisioned my future offspring, I didn’t see a child with Down syndrome. There have been dozens of surprises, large and small, positive and negative and neutral. And no matter how often I counsel myself to expect the unexpected, it always takes me off-guard. I can’t trump the unpredictable and the unseen, although I’ve tried.

How has life surprised you? How do you cope with the stark reality of the unexpected? How do you plan for life, knowing it very well may shred your plans–and that you might be better off as a result? How do you walk the fine line between deliberate living and surrender?

Maybe deliberate surrender is an important part of the answer.

Category: Daily Special

Comments

24 Responses to “Deliberate surrender”

FoxyJ
January 18th, 2009 @ 10:27 am

Thank you for this–lately I keep having these thoughts of “where am I?” “This isn’t what I wanted”, “how did I get here?” The funny thing is that I’m in graduate school, which is where I always wanted to be. And I’m realizing that it’s probably not the best place for me right now. For most of our marriage my husband and I talked about how we’d have a non-traditional arrangement with both of us working/taking care of the kids. And now we’re both realizing that we’re miserable and he needs to get a job and I want to be home. So we’re figuring it out and hopefully this year we’ll be able to find something that fits us a little better.

I’ve also been feeling that a lot over the last few years since my husband left the church. We met when we served in the same mission, and if you had asked me 8 years ago if he’d ever stop believing in God I’d have thought you were crazy. Some things you really don’t see coming. I do know that we’re just beginning this particular journey and I try to remind myself that it will still be a long ride together, even if our relationship looks nothing like I thought it did at the beginning.
Justine
January 18th, 2009 @ 1:57 pm

Somewhere between low expectations and total pliability is where I’m aiming for. I don’t want to shoot too low, or I’ll never get anywhere, but if I’m not willing to accept the ride as it’s offered to me, I’ll be miserable the whole time.

So, smiling is sometimes a conscious choice, but one I make anyway. Looking around me always does wonders for my gratitude, and not taking myself very seriously comes whether I want it to or not.

I’m not where I thought I’d be, but where I am is wonderful, too.
Michelle L.
January 18th, 2009 @ 2:15 pm

Thanks for this Kathryn. I’ve had similar thoughts and am finally coming to grips with them. My life is NOT what I’d planned but it’s pretty fantastic in it’s own right. I love Justine’s idea of not shooting too low but also accepting the ride.
Kelly
January 18th, 2009 @ 2:56 pm

Thank you so much for these words….. they were exactly what I needed to read.
Mommom
January 18th, 2009 @ 3:49 pm

I would like to think that I’m getting better at knowing the direction I need to turn when I’m thrown for a loop. How do you plan for life? I honestly think it comes down to some of the standard answers. Pray, fast, read the scriptures, to put it simply, are the basis for building a relationship with the Lord that will see us through whatever happens in our life. The great thing is they fit any situation.

I don’t know what I would have done without them.
shelah
January 18th, 2009 @ 4:29 pm

My life is pretty much exactly where I thought it would be when I sat in Young Women’s as a teenager and dreamed of my future family. That’s what scares me– I know that the Lord probably has a different view of the path my life should take than the idealized one I drew up at 14, but I’m either too stubborn to go there or else the defining, transforming stuff is still ahead of me, waiting to happen.
dalene
January 18th, 2009 @ 5:30 pm

I think I’m in the same boat as Justine. I don’t know if they’re so much low expectations as no expectations. But I’m looking to enjoy the ride the best I can.

When my dad died of cancer when I was 19 I remember friends my age who had never dealt with the death of someone close to them kept asking me “How do you go on?” The thing is, no matter what our circumstances–what the course of our lives, life does goes on and so must we.

It also helps that I’m very much an in-the-moment kind of girl. I try to prepare for the future and I do have a few dreams. I hope somehow my husband and I will be healthy and financially stable enough to serve several missions throughout our retirement. But even when things happen that threaten those dreams, days still come one at a time and I simply take them one day at a time.
rebekah
January 18th, 2009 @ 5:39 pm

this post touched my heart. one of the greatest myths perpetuated among young women in the the church is that once marriage is attained, everything else falls into place and life is gravy. i see so much work being done in the church to dispel that myth, and as a single sister i appreciate married sisters speaking candidly about the realities of life ‘on the other side’. you probably don’t want to know that i find comfort in your trials, but i do. it means to me that those of us who are still single aren’t the only ones struggling, that i haven’t been kept out of some celestial vip room where everything is rosie just because of my marital status. and it gives me greater faith that the Lord’s timing should be accepted and cherished instead of worked against and complained about. only He knows what i will face in the circumstance of a wife and mother, so i can trust that this waiting period is for my good and not a punishment not being good enough.
Selwyn
January 18th, 2009 @ 5:45 pm

Ack, this is something I’m trying to live with, work out and deal with on a daily, sometimes second/minute basis.

I don’t know the answer. I’m just trying to do what is needed now, and trust – to have FAITH – that everything will work out…eventually.

I’m very slowly learning patience. Learning to let go of all my plans, dreams and hopes. I’m not even considering dreams for the future – it’s still too tender a pain, too close to seeing the smoldering ashes of my last disaster.

I am deliberately living,not just enduring, or surviving (though some days plain survival is my goal!)I am finding some joy in the journey – now (President Monson).

Reading the last line, I realise I probably read it incorrectly to mean deliberate living and deliberate surrender. I like the term “deliberate surrender”. Not to be surrendering to life or the problems therein. Surrendering my life to someone who knows better, knows me, and knows what’s ahead.

Deliberate living and deliberate surrender – it’s what I’m trying to achieve.
Kristin
January 18th, 2009 @ 7:16 pm

Rebekah…I love what you shared. Especially this part: “i can trust that this waiting period is for my good and not a punishment for not being good enough.”

I think it is such a poignant statement for whatever trial we face, whether unemployment, strained family relationships, depression, infertility, health concerns, and the like. When we actually break down and share our trials with each other, we begin to realize that we all face unforseen and unexpected challenges. All of us. Some of us just pretend better than others, and thus appear to have entered the “everything is rosy” celestial VIP room.

Our family has experienced some great difficulties in getting to where we are now, including a sudden lay-off (right after purchasing our first home). That was tough. The feeling of limbo was the most difficult part…waiting to see what would work out next and not knowing how long it would be.

I have found that as we have trusted the Lord’s timing, everything really has always worked out for our family. From listening to promptings about having a child at a time I didn’t think I was ready, to moving across the country for my husband to attend law school…in retrospect I have always seen that the Lord’s plan allowed us to receive far more blessings than my plans along the way would have.

I have learned through experience to listen to the promptings of our Father in Heaven…to choose that deliberate surrender to his will. And I am doing my best to enjoy the ride as I go along. I loved what Justine said about that. I think she had a great perspective on it.

At least, I do pretty well with the deliberate surrender in the big picture, broad strokes sense of it. But I admit I really struggle when my days get off track. When a morning of kid disasters throws off the tight schedule ahead, I don’t always cope so well. You would think I would be better at that by now.

Thinking about Joanne makes me want to try harder to have a positive attitude regardless of what each day holds.

Thanks for sharing that post Kathryn. Great thoughts for pondering and reflection.
Jannet
January 18th, 2009 @ 8:20 pm

I am a planner. I love to-do lists and check lists and daily schedules. In college I had one of those “my life is all zipped up in here” planners that I took with me everywhere. Even breaks were carefully scheduled. I had my entire course load for the next four years mapped out my first semester. That was just how I did things, very deliberately.
Then I got married, and had to start planning around another person. Then we had kids, and my planner started gathering dust on top of the spit up and cracker crumbs and potty reward stickers.
I guess that was Heavenly Father’s way of helping me to let go of my plan and surrender to His. I still struggle sometimes. I still crave check lists and try my hardest to be deliberate in my scheduling, but only on the things that are mine to control. I have learned to surrender my will to His on the most important things- somehow I ened up a military wife a country away from my family, with three kids, an inactive husband, and a stack of college textbooks from an un-used degree collecting dust on the shelf. And I know it is the absolute best place I could be right now because we were led here by His hand.
So I guess my answer is to live diliberately when it comes to the small things, but to surrender to Him in the big things.
Real Mom, Real Life
January 18th, 2009 @ 9:01 pm

Beautiful and thought provoking… I think we all have to have curve balls thrown our way every so often to keep us remembering who our Support is. Love this post!
laurel
January 18th, 2009 @ 9:37 pm

I’m a planner at heart who loves the thrill of working hard to accomplish a goal. It makes me proud. I feel confident and smart, and capable. Those feelings are an important part of life, and the drive to access them is intrinsic in most of us.

As a mom with my fourth on the way, I now understand feelings I never would have sought out myself. Physical and emotional pain beyond words, deep longing and worry for things beyond my control. The feelings are so heavy and real that I feel their heat in my chest. And yet…the joy that man was created to experience would not be comprehended without them. And I have joy in my life that swells in my chest… just where the pain and longing burned a place for it.
wendy
January 18th, 2009 @ 10:04 pm

I love this, Kathryn. I’ve been thinking about this off and on all day. The comment I began this morning was a bit different from what I am ending up with tonight. As I read others’ comments, it occurred to me that most of my “life’s not what I expected” situations have been more about timing than anything else. My 18 year old plan included marrying young, having a dozen children, never having to work outside of the home. My reality includes having a career for five years before marrying at 33, and for six more years until we finally adopted our possibly only child.

There have been times and situations that I think I have been pretty good at surrendering, and times that I have thrown temper tantrums. I was much better at surrendering when I was single and didn’t have somebody else’s agency to add to the mix. I still have little temper tantrums on occasion. But . . . it seems that when I am ready to listen, I am reminded that God sees and knows all, and I have been blessed with promptings and reassurances that help me in that surrendering process. I cling to those promptings when things continue to go differently than I want. I also pray to see things clearly, as my vision is sometimes so shortsighted. I really need to be ready to listen more often.
wendy
January 18th, 2009 @ 10:06 pm

p.s.–I mean to add, seeing that most of my challenges have been timing related reminded me that I have SO much to be grateful for. So I haven’t gotten what I wanted as soon as I wanted it . . . that is not such a hard thing.
Gabrielle
January 18th, 2009 @ 11:07 pm

This is a topic I think about on a daily basis. I’m a planner too, but the past dozen years have sure given me some new things to plan around!
Many aspects of my life *are* what I always wanted and dreamed about. I have to keep reminding myself of this all the time. The temptation for myopic, narcissistic self-pity is strong.
Only a few life events have really thrown me for a loop. Years of infertility and the awful roller coaster of ever more expensive and invasive treatments and failures were really difficult for me. Then came a diagnosis of MS. Years of failing treatments and deteriorating physically. A bone marrow transplant as a last-ditch effort to save some mobility. Finally, the realization that at 32, I will be disabled for the rest of my life and that I have to reconstruct my whole identity as a wife, mother, and woman.
The one thing I can rely on is that, no matter my physical circumstances, Jesus Christ really can make it all right. He will not remove my trials but he can take the pain from my heart if I truly surrender to his will.
Easier said than done.
Kay
January 19th, 2009 @ 5:38 am

I need to learn to let go, I really do. I was much better at it when I was single and there was only my life to organise. I find it hard to mix my desires, needs and expectations with everyone else’s in the family. I know that makes me sound really selfish. I am a self confessed control freak and running 5 lives is way too much for me at times. No, I am not in the kind of marraige that I expected or have the kind of family that I expected. My life is not even close to what I thought it would be and I do struggle with that. Some of it I know is down to my own bad choices. My husband tells that that I always have ridiculously high expectations of everything and if I didn’t then I wouldn’t be disappointed so often. I find it hard to let go of my dreams though and just accept where I am at. Personal peace I know can come through prayer and scripture study, sometimes it sounds so trite to rattle that off as an answer but so often the most obvious things are staring us in the face.
Kathryn Soper
January 19th, 2009 @ 8:40 am

Thank you, everyone, for these comments. I’m touched by your candor and insights, and I’m learning from each of you.

We’re perpetually caught between accepting what is and trying to change what is. I’ve spent so much time and energy on the latter (in an unbalanced manner) that I’ve caused myself a lot of pain.

These days I’m focusing on acceptance more than change. I’m finding that acceptance is actually the first essential step towards real, beneficial change. If I haven’t made peace with a given situation before trying to change it, I act out of anxiety and fear, and my methods of change tend to be not only ineffective but contrary to the spirit. But it can be so hard to accept and even embrace what is.

I try to “Be still and know that I am God”–that God is right there in the moment with me, in the situation with me. And he’s not freaking out.
jendoop
January 19th, 2009 @ 1:46 pm

Great post and comments!

rebekah, thanks for being so candid and honest, it made me feel like we are truly a sisterhood despite all the differences.

I had that ‘happily ever after’ idea of a temple marriage. My marriage is good, but not the sparkling palace of perfection and bliss I imagined. We had a baby, secondary fertility issues, then depression for me, a move, two kids born close together, another lost job, a move, a lost job…well you get the idea. Nothing in my life has lived up to expectation. Things are either far better than I could have ever imagined or vastly different/worse. Somehow I think that is a good description of marriage and life. If I haven’t stopped by now I might as well keep on going and enjoy the journey.
Leslie
January 19th, 2009 @ 2:32 pm

For me in the good times I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop- knowing that bricks are being stacked into a giant heap to drop on me at any moment. It is hard to prepare ourselves for those totally unexpecteds– life just isn’t served al a carte.
Jennie
January 19th, 2009 @ 3:32 pm

My life is certainly not what I imagined as I’d sit in sacrament meeting and fantasize about my life one day. For one thing, I just couldn’t imagine being older than 26. 26 just seemed like the cut-off after which a person is nothing but old.

The things I so very badly wanted now seem completely naive and ignorant. Some of the things were good, but ended up not happening anyway. I can see the silliness and superficiality of my desires. I can also see the wisdom and strength that I have gained on the path I’ve taken instead. I am so much stronger and wiser than I ever imagined I would be. These things have come only through the heartaches and pain I’ve felt. I would never have learned to be compassionate and patient if my life were filled with nothing but joy.

I’ve also realized that many of the things I have are not important to the world (being a stay-at-home-mom to my six children, for one). It’s made me really think about what it is that the world values. I refuse to buy into the notion that we aren’t really “living” if we have a suburban lifestyle filled with mortgages and ballet lessons. That somehow living a “typical” life is selling out; that it’s not valuable. That my life isn’t artisitc and beautiful and cool enough. My life is pretty amazing, even with sickness and unemployment and all that other stuff that happens along the way. My life *is* beautiful and I refuse to let anyone tell me that it isn’t the greatest thing ever. I refuse to feel like my life isn’t good enough, just because it’s different that how I planned it to be.
Zina
January 19th, 2009 @ 5:58 pm

On the one hand, I do really have the life I always wanted: I wanted to be married in the temple to a good man and have a bunch of kids, and that’s what has happened. Not without obstacles and difficulty, but on the whole it’s all come true so far, and I’m very, very grateful.

On the other hand, I hoped to raise my kids in a nice, orderly home, and that’s just not the reality for me (at least not to my very high standards.) I was once very organized, on a scale that would probably not be practical for any mother of a large family, but particularly not for one who’s spent the last 9 years either pregnant, nursing, or dealing with yet another demanding health issue (of mine or my kids’.) I’m constantly critical of myself for what I don’t accomplish, and since my biggest nemesis is a disorderly home, and I spend most of my time in that home, my “failures” are always in front of me. I have to keep reminding myself (daily!) that I’ve nearly always done my best and that the Lord hasn’t given up on me, and I shouldn’t judge myself so harshly, nor compare myself to others with different sets of challenges.

Just this morning I was imagining taking a little quiz that would say:

Choose one:

A. Beauty, health, order, calm, control.

B. Having kids.

And I knew I would check “B” all over again.
mormonhermitmom
January 19th, 2009 @ 10:39 pm

Wonderful post.
Sue
January 27th, 2009 @ 12:53 pm

GREAT post.

We’ve all heard the old maxim, “Happiness isn’t having what you want; it’s wanting what you have.” I guess the same thing goes with accepting life as it really is.

As someone with chronic illness, letting go of my own agenda has been very important for me. It’s important, I’ve found, when letting go of your agenda not to let go of your dreams…or of the feeling that you can still act upon the world and get results. Even limitations have limits, right?

My family didn’t turn out exactly the way I imagined it either, but that has been an easier adjustment for me because of my kids. Even during the very most difficult times (and believe me, there have been some pretty heinous ones), I’ve always been crazy about these people, aka my children. And that helps with the acceptance factor. A lot.

Would I change anything? At first thought, maybe some of the health issues…but on second thought, probably not. (I figure it’s a safe bet that the Lord’s plan beats the heck out of mine.)

=)