Giving up feels heavy. It's like walking away from a half built dream. The obstacles are too fierce, and your aspirations get the life sucked out of them like a popped balloon.
Surrender involves letting go as well. While the two may show up as doppelgangers, they are actually opposite.
Giving up is when you relinquish yourself to a force that has trampled you, side swiped you, blocked your path. The opposition is negative, and leaves you feeling empty.
But when you surrender, it is because a source of energy has offered to carry you, like an incoming tide lifts up an exhausted fisherman. He no longer needs to paddle because the ocean has offered to bring him home. I suspect that sea gulls are masters of surrender. Rather than pumping against the wind, they trust the current to carry them to shore.
The twelve step program is based on surrender. In contrast to continuing to fight against his or her addiction, he or she submits to a Power that is able to face the addiction squarely, and win.
In both cases, a person acknowledges their powerlessness. But with surrender, that does not mean defeat.
Sometimes relationships reach a point of giving up. Both people are spent, and can't eek out the strength to keep trying. Yet sometimes, that is precisely the place God wants them to be, poised on a pinnacle of uncertainty.
John felt that way before we fell in love. He wanted to find the right person, and had tried his best through a number of relationships. But eventually he succumbed. He could not do this.
And God saw His chance to take the helm.
