Surrender... Often during worship we'll say that we surrender to God's will or whatever, but what does that actually look like? Are we saying empty words we don't intend to carry out?
Surrender isn't something to say we're doing just so that we can have a good, fluttery feeling in our stomachs while we sing to God. It isn't lifting your hands, getting on your knees, singing as loud as you can. It isn't tears streaming down your cheeks.
Main Entry: sur·ren·der
Pronunciation: \sə-ˈren-dər\
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): sur·ren·dered; sur·ren·der·ing \-d(ə-)riŋ\
Etymology: Middle English surrendren, from surrendre, noun
Date: 15th century
transitive verb 1 a : to yield to the power, control, or possession of another upon compulsion or demand
2 a : to give (oneself) up into the power of another especially as a prisoner b : to give (oneself) over to something (as an influence)intransitive verb : to give oneself up into the power of another : yield
synonyms see relinquish
Main Entry: re·lin·quish
Pronunciation: \ri-ˈliŋ-kwish, -ˈlin-\
Function: transitive verb
Etymology: Middle English relinquisshen, from Anglo-French relinquiss-, stem of relinquir, from Latin relinquere to leave behind, from re- + linquere to leave — more at loan
Date: 15th century
1 : to withdraw or retreat from : leave behind
2 : give up
3 a : to stop holding physically : release
You can't surrender to God without giving yourself entirely up. This means every pleasure, every craving, every thought, every action, etc. needs to be God's, completely.
I am so guilty of lifting my hands in surrender, and then turning my back as soon as the music stops.
God got on my case about this a little while back. Of course, as gracious and merciful as He is, he actually went as far as to make it easy for me to surrender myself to Him.
(Just as a side note, I'm trying hard not to care about man's opinion of me, but I would really appreciate it if you could please try hard not to judge...
I don't want your reassurances that you love me and care about me, etc. Most people in my life I've known long enough that it's pretty clear who honestly cares about me and who doesn't. I mean, I love being reassured that I'm cared about, but don't reassure me simply because you think it looks like I need it.
Judging includes jumping to conclusions, so don't do that either. Especially if you think you're mentioned. If you are, I've most likely talked to you about it before.)
Without the Lord, my life kinda sucks. I'm not saying that to be negative or anything, it's just the truth. I rarely sleep. Whether it's because of the neighbor's dog that barks into all hours of the night/early morning, my cat, other things going on, or my own mind- there's always something that keeps me awake. I don't really have "friends". I'm burnt out from being the only one who actually cares and constantly being taken advantage of by people who claim to be my better friends and love me. I'm not going to go into more details because I don't believe in slander or gossip, especially when those in question haven't an opportunity to defend themselves, and there's some stuff that I simply don't want to share... But yeah, basically, outside of my Mishpacha in my congregation, my life fell apart.
About a week or so ago, I was pondering all this, and just started sobbing (tearless sobs... I'll explain that later. Or maybe not.). I just gave up. I told God He could take me any time, because life is meaningless now.
I don't even remember what happened the rest of that week.
And then this past Shabbat, everything changed. I really did give up my life.
This week, I'm not reading any books except for my school books and the Bible. I'm spending a lot of time in the Word and in prayer. Not only am I not listening to any secular music, I'm only listening to worship music.
God told me Saturday to go a week like this. I'm starting to want it to last longer.
Anything secular seems meaningless to me right now. While I'll always be an avid lover of anything classic, intricate, complicated- I probably will never throw out my Metallica, Wuthering Heights, or Tomb Raider- it's all pointless and it needs to not be what defines me. If I get through this week and find that I need to listen to that Five Finger Death Punch song or I'll go nuts, I'll go another week without it. I'll go without secular music and books until I don't need it to get through my day, then I'll move onto the next thing. I'll take this week by week until I have no idols.
I've given up on life. And that's what made it so easy to surrender myself completely. You can't surrender without giving up. To surrender is to give up.
And no I'm not becoming a nun or taking an oath of silence or anything like that. I'm just simply making God the main focus of my life rather than myself. (:
The past couple of days have been pretty easy, but I'm not expecting it to be all smooth sailing. I know my flesh will kick in one of these days and demand Tool. That's what happens during a detox. It's easy, then you go virtually insane with cravings, but once you get past that, you're free. And I'm not going to attempt to run on empty. Everything that goes out is replaced with something much, much better- God. Meaning.
I'm relinquishing my life, surrendering to God.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
I Gave Up
Posted by HeatherHarmony at 12:54 PM 0 comments
Friday, July 23, 2010
My Mind... Part 2
I have a great dislike for society.
For one, all your life, you're taught that there are two types of people- right-brained and left-brained. Creative types and mathematical types. People always always have one preference for the way they think... If you're left-brained, you have a more logical, sequential, rational, analytical, objective way of thinking. You like to examine each individual part of something rather than just accepting it as a whole. If you're right-brained, your way of thinking is more random, intuitive, holistic, synthesizing, subjective. Right away you look at the whole picture rather than each individual piece of the picture. Society pushes this idea into us. It caters to each side of the brain as per the individual. If you're right-brained, you have this set of careers from which to choose. If you're left-, you get to choose from this set.
Mostly why I hate this "ideal"? I don't fit in.
I always struggled with this. Most of my life I just went along with the idea that I was right-brained. I planned on Graphic Design for my career, I played up the role of a shy, creative type. I was supposed to be one or the other, and since I loved to draw, write, sing, dream; music keeps me going and The Lord of the Rings are the best books ever written, I must be right-brained.
So someone tell me, why did I take apart all my pens as a kid so I could figure out how pushing a button at the top made the point come out and then retract? Why do I weigh the pros and cons before stepping into any situation? Why are mysteries like the ones Agatha Christie writes my absolute favorite books to read? (Why is my math homework to my right and my sketch pad to my left? o.O)
My favorite subjects in school are and always have been Science and English. I can't choose whether I want to go to college for English or Counseling. I love to poor my soul out by singing but I'd have just as much fun being the band's manager. Etcetera.
Basically, I'm somewhat of an oxymoron with flesh.
A freak of nature.
An outcast.
But recently, like within the past 4-6 months, I've actually come to terms with it. I've accepted the way my brain operates. While it's frustrating as all heck to have emotions of rejection simply for my parents pointing how my schedule for getting the laundry done in one day is flawed (because that schedule is a thing that I created), it's how God created my mind and I'll learn to utilize it somehow.
After all, why did the "ideal Renaissance man", the same man whose designs involved primitive prototypes for things like the machine gun and armored tanks, paint the Mona Lisa? Why did many of his artistic works include very scientific sketches of human anatomy? DaVinci was definitely a walking oxymoron to the most extreme.
Society doesn't get me. But I'm perfectly okay with that, because I don't get Society.
I read the dicitonary when I'm bored. I stare at the ceiling fan working out in my mind why it turns the way it does. I sketch my cat completely aware that her ear is a 60 degree angle. I can get lost in math problems just as easily as I can get lost in a J.R.R. Tolkien novel. When involved in a conversation I am aware of my mind putting together equations of what words to say to merit which series of responses.
Oh, and did you know that, contrary to common belief, the sky isn't blue because of the ocean? The earth is mostly water, and we're taught, therefore, that the sky reflects the blue of the ocean. However, in order for this theory to work, the ocean has to have its own source of... blueness. So why is the ocean blue? The preferential absorption of long-wavelength (red) light gives rise to the blue. Basically, the ocean can't possibly be the cause of the sky being blue because the ocean isn't technically blue itself. It's only blue because of the way the light reflects off of it...
Micheal Kruger says, "The sky is blue not because the atmosphere absorbs the other colors, but because the atmosphere tends to scatter shorter wavelength (blue) light to a greater extent than longer wavelength (red) light. Blue light from the sun is scattered every which way, much more so than the other colors, so when you look up at the daytime sky you see blue no matter where you look. This scattering is called 'Rayleigh scattering'; the amount of scattering goes as the frequency of the light to the 4th power."
So really, the sky isn't blue because of the water, and the water isn't even blue itself. They both appear blue because of the way the atmosphere distributes light.
By the way, please ask me about one of the novels I'm writing... I'd love to share one with you. One's about a girl and her unicorn. (;
Posted by HeatherHarmony at 12:22 PM 0 comments
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Oh fun, I'm going to talk about: Dating.
Most people describe the teenage years as the years you're supposed to figure out who you are, what you want in life. Probably most importantly to teenage girls, your 'type' in men.
Dating is supposed to be a really big part of being a teenager, especially in high school. It's shocking to find out someone who is 16 hasn't had their first kiss yet. When you're 14 a boyfriend seems like a really important thing to have. While abstinence from sex isn't necessarily looked down upon, one constantly has to deal with the pressure from tv, movies, music, and peers to just "live a little".
This coming November, I will have been a teenager for 6 years. I have never had anyone I could call my "boyfriend". I've never been able to change my Facebook relationship status to something other than "single". I've never been on a more-than-friendly date. And of course, my first kiss belongs to someone in the future.
I tell this to people, and they either look at me like I just grew an extra limb or like I'm something to be pitied. You wouldn't believe how much crap I get for it.
Of course there have been times where I let my emotions do the talking. I won't go into all the gory details, but I've tried giving my heart to a few different guys. Never once have they held it long enough for me to get comfortable enough to call them my boyfriend.
I started my teenage years saying this, and I've never said anything contrary. It's only recently that I've actually started to believe it, though. Dating, at my age, at least for me, is a waste of time.
Fun fact to help back up this point:
A Harris Interactive survey conducted in January of 2006 merited the following results- Only 14% of people 18+ in a relationship (not necessarily married) met their counterpart while in school (high school/college). 34% of these were ages 18-27, 14% ages 28-39, while only 10% were 40+.
Why should I bother falling in love with someone who isn't the one God wants me to be with forever? Maybe I know that guy now, as a teenager, but if I have my whole life to spend with that person, why should I rush things?
You could argue my point by saying that, as I stated at the beginning of this post, your teenage years are meant to figure out who you are. Sure, the years of your youth are meant to be a learning period. But don't you think you'd be on the shorter road to finding out who you are if you simply looked to God to tell you who you are? I don't see anywhere in the Bible that says dating is crucial to unlocking the mystery that is ourselves. I don't believe that "falling in love" is the key to who you are. How many people do you know, let's say around 25 years of age, who know exactly who they are? Not very many would be my guess... In fact, I don't think I know anyone who spent their teenage years doing what society tells us to do who knows "who they are" because of it. I think most people, if ever, figure it out in their mid-late 30s, and end up regretting a lot of what they did as a teenager.
Not to mention, how many friendships do you lose by dating guys? Why date someone for a few months only to get too hurt to ever talk to them again, when you could have spent that time building up a solid friendship that may carry into adulthood? Friends are worth so much more than a dating experience. Unfortunately this is one lesson I learned from the past, although it doesn't take a genius to figure out. But hey, if he didn't want to stick around as my friend simply because I "broke up" with him, then how good of a friend was he really? Yet another point as to why dating is a waste of time. If a guy isn't willing to be your friend, he doesn't honestly like you and you shouldn't waste your time dating him.
You could point out that this is really easy for me to say being that there probably isn't a guy in all of Arizona who even has a crush on me. While that's probably true, my whole view point on dating isn't solely based on the fact that I'm perpetually single. (I'd also like to state, perhaps unnecessarily, that I'm not perpetually single because of my view on dating. There really isn't anyone who likes me that way.:)
I'm not totally adverse to dating. I do admit that if a certain boy asked me out, I'd probably say yes in a heartbeat. But my point of this post is simply that my confidence in myself doesn't depend on what some guy thinks of me. It doesn't depend on how many guys I've kissed, how many dates I've been on, etc. The fact that I'm 17 and can count on my fingers on one hand how many guys have told me they liked me hardly affects me. I don't need horrible experiences and a broken heart to tell me what to look for in a guy. I certainly don't need an STD to tell me not to sleep around.
I know that God knows what He's doing, and if He has someone for me, that guy is somethin really special. And if it's what I have to do, I'm perfectly okay with waiting. How cool will it be when I can smile at my husband while telling my kids my first love was their dad?
Posted by HeatherHarmony at 3:58 PM 0 comments