Surrendering All

All to thee my blessed Savior, I surrender all.

What freedom we have to surrender all that we have to God. I never knew that I would get the opportunity to surrender having children with my wife to God. What a difficult privilege to surrender! Shelli and I have been talking about how hard it can be to fully surrender this. Shouldn't surrender be easy? Like giving up? I guess our will to want what we want can be quite strong, making surrender hard. I am so glad that surrendering to God is not a bad thing... and that surrending to him brings life and joy! Wow, I wish my mind really beleived this all the time so I wouldn't put up such a fight!

I desire for my heart to want to yield to God... I want to trust his good, pleasing, and perfect will. Lets be real, I want to really believe that his will is good, pleasing, and perfect.

As I work through this, I am rejoicing at all that God has let me surrender to Him in the past. God, please be big and strong and good to us as we surrender all that we are and all that we have to you now.

Things that God has helped me surrender to him in the past- Singleness, My Grades, Abandonment by friends, Rejection by peers, Financial loss, Financial harship, Depression, Uncertainty of future, Wounds from my dad. There are lots of other things too, but these are some big ones. When I look back on how God has redeemed and restored so many of these situations I praise Him!

Dear Lord, please help us to surrender all to you! Amen.

Because of God and Others - My town.

I fully recognize that I am where I am today because of God and others. My heart fills with gratitude when I reflect on how blessed I have been by other people. This entry is really for me, so that I remember just how I got to this point in my life.
Just the other night I was sharing with Shelli how rich and secure my growing up was. I grew up in a small town of Swedish people who are the best socialists that ever lived. From the time I was born, I was cared for and given richly to by these people. Many of them were aunts and uncles, great-aunts and uncles, cousins and other relatives..but lots of friends and neighbors invested in me too. It warms my heart to think of the countless things they did to bless me. I first want to share about the people from my town. Another post will be reserved for my family, and another for the wise mentors who invested in me. This isn't coming together so I will finish it later.