Sweet Surrender

In the past few months, I’ve come to a conclusion.

Out of all of The Fruits of The Spirit, there is one that I am greatly lacking. It had never been blatant to me before, but then suddenly-bam! There it was, sticking out of The Bible like a sore thumb. Number four.

Go ahead, sing the song to yourself…Love, Joy, Peace, Patience-stop right there. Patience. Everly lacks deeply in patience.

I’ve noticed it in pottery class, I’ve noticed it in my interaction and conversation with others, I’ve noticed it in my writing (very much so) and in life in general, but the other day when I was (oddly) home alone and I sat myself down to practice piano, and saw it the most clearly.

Our whole big mod squad house was empty. Silent.

I played the piano as loudly as I wanted, never fearing that I may wake my napping father or interrupt my mother's telephone conversation or irritate some reading sibling. Never fearing the embarrassment that looms over beginners of every sort as they hunch over their instruments or paintbrushes or song books or toolbox and slowly peck out their first notes of practice.

I was fearless.

C-D-B-D, I rang out the first few notes of "Tammy" with all the confidence I could muster. I played the song all of the way through a couple of times, my long fingers finally finding their place in this world. I flipped through a book and played "The Cuckoo" and a few other easy songs. It was fun...for the moment.

But after a while, I came to a few difficulties. If there had been any, a passerby would have known I was frustrated by simply walking past. The fast paced staccato I was playing, the mistakes I was making and the expression on my face told the entire story. I was failing and I was impatient to succeed.

"Calm down" my sense told me. After a while of blowing off steam (there was no "tickling the ivories" now, more like "beating") I did calm down. I stared at the piano, angry as if it had made all of the mistakes. But I knew that I was really angry with myself. Whatever I pick up, I seem to drop. And when it drops, it shatters into a million pieces. Piano was sliding out of my hands. Pretty soon I would drop it all together and never be able to put it back together again.

I've dropped so many things in the past...incomplete poems, the beginnings of a thousand novels, premature projects destined for the dusty grave of under-the-bed. Ballet, horseback riding, photo shop, ballroom dancing, painting, even driving. Embroidery, math, calligraphy, vocabulary, reading lists and decoupage-I could go on and on. It's the reason that one of the characteristics I admire most in a person is focus, determination and the ability to finish what they've started. Because I never could.

When I was little, this was just an annoyance. Of course I couldn't ever finish what I started-I had the attention span of a fly! Like me, all of my friends were running around town like they were on an Easter Egg Hunt, picking up one egg just long enough to open it, take what they wanted and drop it for some other colorful object on the horizon. But now, at seventeen, I find myself...well, old. Frankly, I am seventeen years into a life of Heaven-knows-how-few-years and it is time I start looking ahead. Is there anything at all I want to have on my Earthly resume before I kick the bucket?

Life doesn't offer any rewards for participation, it offers rewards for finishing the race. At the first sight of a bump in the road or someone passing me up, my first inclination is to pull over. I'll just sit here on this rock until the race is over, and when someone asks me what I'm doing here, I'll just tell them that racing really isn't my thing.

But there I was, in the afternoon sun of the entry way. Just me and Jane and only sheet music between us. Who would win? The confusing notes and sticking keys, or the one created in God's image with a (hard to believe) brain in her head? Jane just has keys and wires and pipes and feet-I have free will. Will I lift my fingers up again and start over? Will I take a deep breath and give it another shot? Will press one key after another until I've made something like music? Ding-dong instead of Clickety-clack but it is still just Everly and some keys and a work of art waiting to be born. But did I have it in me?

The answer came in a low octave: no.

No. Everly had nothing in her. Nothing to add, nothing to help, nothing to speak of.

Except for one thing-a Spirit. Not just any Spirit, but the Spirit of the one who created her, and Earth and Music and the wood that made Jane. A Spirit who has no limits but those in Everly's own weak and mistaken mind. A Spirit who can fill a pot with unending oil, a sea with blood, a dead man with life, a donkey with speech and a silly little girl with the ability to Glorify her Lord.

And with Joy! And Music!

I shuffle around for my hymn book and go to the last page. It is the only song in the whole book that I know, all of the others having lost their popularity with the rise of the guitar and microphone in church. I begin to squint at the notes. What was that one, again? I think a D...but no, that sounds wrong. I piddle and fidget and then-yes! That's it. Whatever it was I just hit is the first note in "I Surrender All."

Then another and another and, there is no other way to say it than I was playing it. I was playing the chorus to a song I've never been taught. No, not perfectly. Even those abandoned to Jesus do nothing perfect while they are on Earth. But I am playing it, and as I play the words become so clear.

All to Jesus I surrender;

All to Him I freely give;

I will ever love and trust Him,

In His presence daily live.

I surrender all,

I surrender all;

All to Thee, my blessed Savior,

I surrender all.

All to Jesus I surrender;

Humbly at His feet I bow,

Worldly pleasures all forsaken;

Take me, Jesus, take me now.

All to Jesus I surrender;

Make me, Savior, wholly Thine;

Let me feel the Holy Spirit,

Truly know that Thou art mine.

All to Jesus I surrender;

Lord, I give myself to Thee;

Fill me with Thy love and power;

Let Thy blessing fall on me.

All to Jesus I surrender;

Now I feel the sacred flame.

Oh, the joy of full salvation!

Glory, glory, to His Name!

I wave the white flag at the sight of piano and at writing and relationships and I am not ashamed. I am waving the white flag because there is someone who will save me. I am nothing on my own and I need not try to be, for through me, Jesus promises to further his Kingdom and satisfy me with work I've yet to imagine.

All to Jesus I surrender, surrender, surrender all.

e.pleasant