Sheri Wohlfert shares a rainy-day reminder of surrender and gratitude.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, on your own intelligence do not rely. (Proverbs 3:5)
When I was young, I wore leg braces that had cables and hinges on the inside and outside of my legs. They ran from the bottom of my shoes up to my waist, and they were connected to special corrective shoes. Needless to say, I hated those braces for so many reasons, one being the shoes were just so ugly.
Every time I wanted to throw a pity party when someone in my class got fancy new shoes, my mom would remind me that shiny shoes were not going to help me walk properly. Then she’d wink and let me know that I would outgrow pretty shoes, but I’d never be sorry I could walk better. It was a choice, even on the days it didn’t feel like it!
To this day, I always notice people’s shoes and if I wasn’t so tight with my money, I’d probably own a dozen pairs!
Living-Color Lessons
Those braces were a great teacher: They taught me about humility and patience and gratitude. They also taught me that we need to think carefully about how we see things. Michigan has such a crazy weather. The past couple of days it was sunny, gorgeous and in the upper 70s but today it’s rainy, cold, and in the 50s. It would be so easy to grumble about the yucky weather today, completely forgetting about the beautiful days we just enjoyed.
We can be such pouty babies when things don’t line up with our wishes, can’t we? I was trotting through the grocery store feeling completely annoyed this afternoon because my shoes got wet in the parking lot and I was soggy and chilly, when all of a sudden I rounded the corner and saw a lady with leg braces and a guide dog. My mind went back many decades to my braces, and I ducked into a quiet aisle to have a chat with myself.
As I thought about my soggy feet all I could feel was overwhelming gratitude for feet that could easily tromp through the puddles. After I said a prayer of thanks and got ready to take off again, I realized I had ducked into the coffee aisle, and I couldn’t help but smile and thank Him again for one of my favorite things … COFFEE! And just because He’s so fancy, my favorite kind was on sale.
The Act of Surrender
I spent the next five aisles thinking about all the times I rumble in my head when things aren’t just how I like it and then I remembered the remedy! Father Dolindo Ruotolo composed a prayer called the Surrender Novena, which includes one simple line repeated ten times: O Jesus, I surrender myself to you, take care of everything.
I pray that simple prayer on repeat — and when I forget to be grateful or I try to manage things that are not mine to manage, it draws me to peace and truth. When the prayer is said with love and trust the outcome is powerful.
This prayer serves as a great reminder that life comes with things we love and things we don’t: things we’d choose and things we’d like to take a hard pass on. If someone tries to give us something, we do a quick evaluation and run through questions like: do I like it, do I need it, do I want it, is it valuable? But when we offer something to the Father, he gladly takes it all. When we surrender to Him, and offer Him our very self, He doesn’t just pick the good parts or the pretty parts or the put-together parts. He wants ALL of us — every single part of our life.
He wants our bad days, our distractions, pain, sadness, frustration, disappointment, rotten sleep, quick temper, half-hearted attempts, doubts, fears, impatience and pridefulness. He’s not like us: He doesn’t just want the sunny warm lovely days; He wants our storms and puddles too. I guess you could say He wants our raindrops as much as our coffee pots.
In case you’re wondering why He would ever want us to surrender all our mess and offer it as a gift to Him, the answer is easy and definitely worth remembering. He wants it so he can replace it with something so much better: His peace and His love and His joy! Doesn’t seem like a fair trade, but then again fairness is a human concept. With God, it’s all about helping us navigate and surrender the junk so we can experience his mighty, perfect love.
A Seed to Plant:
Write that simple surrender prayer down and put it several places so you remember to say it often and soak up the peace as He walks with you through the sunshine and the puddles.
Blessings on your day!
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Copyright 2024 Sheri Wohlfert
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