Surrender

A few weeks ago, during a Sunday morning church service, the worship team began to lead us in the song “I Surrender All.” As I was singing, I began to pray and ask God what it was in my heart that I was not truly surrendering to Him. I began to think through the various things in my life and was consciously seeking to give the control of all aspects of my life to God. As we continued worshipping, I looked to my left and saw my oldest daughter who is four-years-old. She had one hand raised in worship and was singing each word loudly with just a bit of a delay and in a key of her own choosing. What a precious sight. I smiled down at her and suddenly my heart froze. My mind suddenly centered on one thought:

“I cannot choose adoption for my daughter.”

That sentence is still hard for me to write. And, while it is completely true in an earthly sense, it is infinitely more true in a spiritual sense. You see, as parents, it is our job to accurately reflect Christ’s love to our children. It is our responsibility to train them in the way they should go. To teach them the ways of the Lord when they are sitting down and standing up, going out and coming in. To show them how to hide God’s Word in their hearts and fear our Lord! But, as I could hardly bring myself to acknowledge that morning, that is where my responsibility as a parent stops. I am not the one who is responsible to save my children. I am not the one who will bring them into right fellowship with a Holy God. I cannot choose adoption for my children. My God, the great, terrible, awesome, jealous, loving, merciful, all-powerful, holy, just God. He is the one who will choose. I must surrender that decision to Him.

When my husband and I chose to pursue the growth of our earthly family through fostering and adoption, I often thought to myself, “What a wonderful opportunity this will be to be a picture of Christ’s love to these precious children and those watching!” I mean, earthly adoption is such a GORGEOUS picture of our adoption in Christ! We seek to explain adoption to our daughters in such a way that they know it is just a picture of the greatest adoption imaginable! During my oldest daughter’s most vulnerable, insecure times I have explained that, while earthly “pictures” can fail us, there is a God who can give her the permanent security that she longs for. And when our daughters grow up and cry for the unfaithfulness of earthly parent figures, I will cry with them while explaining that the brokenness of earthly pictures is designed to make us long for the day when we will no longer need pictures. For the day we will experience the perfect relationships we were designed for.

I’m beginning to see that, along with all those beautiful pictures, God has been giving me a picture to help me in my choice to surrender to Him. Truthfully? I struggle to surrender. I’m afraid. It doesn’t always seem safe to me to trust such a huge, powerful God with something so precious. But God has provided for me a picture. A broken picture, but a picture. You see, I can fill out paperwork, train, study, become certified, love, and provide a home for three precious girls and still be unable to choose physical adoption! There is a judge somewhere out there. A judge who tries to do what’s right for everyone. One who seeks to be just, merciful, and unbiased. That judge is the one who gets to choose adoption for my girls.

This does not seem like a safe, secure process to surrender to and, in many ways, it’s not. It’s human. It’s broken. It’s sin cursed. But it’s a picture, and I am thankful. I’m thankful that I have a picture to look at to help me understand how I need to trust my God. Because, although the realness of letting someone other than myself decide my daughters’ spiritual future seems like the most dangerous, “unsafe” thing to do, it’s the way God has designed it. And my God is not human. He’s not broken. He’s not sin cursed.  

I love this quote from C. S. Lewis when describing Aslan:

“Safe? … Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you!”
~ C.S. Lewis

I don’t know God’s plan for my daughters. I don’t know if their hearts are hard toward our Shepherd or if they have been predestined for adoption. That’s not my choice. That’s God’s choice. And He is good.

"I surrender all."