Crazy thing happened! My Aunt Betty is now having foot problems. She had to have her toenail removed–and with no anesthesia. She said, “When this injury happened to my toe, I got to thinking. This is interesting. First, it’s my friend, then Annemarie and then it’s me. Now I belong to the injured feet group.  What’s going on here? There must be something we’ve chosen that I would like to find out, so as to not choose those things. I think the Lord wants to teach us that He wants us to sit still and let Him get through to us. Lord, help us hear what you want of us and obey.” Here is the conversation I had with her this week:

What you have been going through is breaking through your willfulness. Your very willfulness is being crucified. The Lord is going to have to give us the lessons we need and the more resistance we give Him, the more suffering we have to suffer. So, if we really want it to be easier, we should stop fighting with the Lord. We are getting black eyes in the process as our willfulness does not want to yield. We have to know that we are going to suffer the more we resist. I remember when I was praying with someone who was in a very willful place. I thought I heard the Lord say, “Oh well, they’re choosing to suffer more, but there’s nothing I can do.” Think of that. This person, by rebelling against the Lord, was choosing a road of more suffering. The Lord was trying to take her down a road that would be less suffering, but “no” she had her free will. She didn’t have to go the road of less suffering. Ok, that’s your choice. Go for it. She could have gotten by with less suffering. Often times, what is so funny, is that they’re the very people that will be crying out, “Why does God give us so much suffering?” It’s really because that’s the way they’re choosing to go.

The contemplative, silent prayer is a prayer of deep surrender. Surrender doesn’t come easy to you. It is a letting go and letting God take over and do it His way. We are used to doing it our way. The way you learn to trust is by actually trusting. The way you learn to yield is by actually yielding. To let go of control, you actually have to practice letting go of control. It is a will to, that expresses itself in doing the very thing you are being called to do. When you fail, and your stubbornness kicks in, there is that humbling act of asking for forgiveness and being pardoned. Until a person actually sets forth and trusts someone, they will not get out of mistrust.

I am using trust as an example of how, in working with people, they can will to trust, but they actually have to experience themselves trusting another person. If they had faith in someone, and that person betrayed them, their cry is, “How will I ever trust someone again?” The answer is by trusting. So, I concluded that if that is the case with trust, it’s also the case with yielding. How can I learn to surrender to God? The answer is by surrendering. In the course of surrendering, we cry out to the Lord, “Help me to do that which is no longer natural to me, that is to surrender.

I have the next several weeks to learn to really surrender. My willfulness is being broken as I hobble around in a boot. It’s been 4 months of nerve damage and now a fractured foot. Whatever lesson I need to learn, pray I learn it this time–once and for all! It may be time to get my “eagle’s wings” since I can’t seem to keep my feet on the ground. 

“But they who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint.” (Isaiah 40:31)