Divine Surrender

I feel I have finally reached a place of true alignment with my soul and with life itself. I feel it each day in how I live, in the deep peace within me, and in the love I have for myself—for how far I have come, the strength it took to overcome what I faced, and the grace of God, who carried me through and gave me strength when I felt defeated and unsure I could keep bearing the weight. I have always held onto something someone once told me: “God only gives you what He knows you can handle.” Even when I struggled with those words and with the idea of God, I can now say with complete certainty that they are true. I would not be here without His spirit, love, and light guiding my soul.

For the past two months, I have been attending Suncoast Community Church every week, and it continues to amaze me how each service seems to speak directly to what my soul had been saying only days before. Each message has aligned with exactly what I needed to hear in a way that feels almost magical. Today, I sent my proposal for Little Balanced Beings to Larry, the head pastor. I had planned to speak with him in person and had rehearsed what I wanted to say all morning after spending days perfecting the proposal. Lylah and I arrived early so I could catch him before the crowd came in for service, but he was not there this week. Still, I was able to ask Troy, another lead pastor, for Larry’s direct email, and he kindly shared it with me. When I got home, I wrote a thoughtful email and sent it.

In that moment, I realized how often we attach ourselves to a specific plan—whether it is as small as wanting to speak to someone at the exact moment we imagined, or as big as trying to control how an idea unfolds. Today reminded me how deeply I trust that if something is meant to be, God’s will is guiding it into perfect alignment at the exact time it is meant to happen. And if something is not aligned, He will remove it and replace it with what is. Coincidentally, that was also the message Troy preached in service. He spoke about how we try to use control to get what we want, whether through withholding, acting out, or trying to
influence another person or life itself. Ultimately, I know I am learning to receive what is truly meant for me by surrendering and releasing control. As Troy said, by letting go of what we desperately want to keep, we allow what is meant for us to find its way. He reminded us, “If I let this go, what will I have left?” “But when we release what is precious, we receive what is promised.” The overall message was that extreme faithfulness often requires us to surrender the things we are most tempted to hold tightly.

When he asked what we were holding onto that we knew we needed to release, I knew immediately. Just before service began, I had written in my notes to someone who has been deeply significant to me, the person I am always writing to, reflecting on, and learning from. I wrote:

My love for you is not a possession to keep; it is a gift to cherish. For two years, I have spoken aloud to the Lord about my love for you. I have told Him that if our hearts are meant to be together forever in the way I hope, then you will find your way to me and fully choose me—but not because I forced it, convinced you, or tried to make it happen. That is not the kind of love I want. It must be your heart choosing me freely, on its own.

So now I believe that, after everything, this is still about letting go. I think I have slowly been doing that over the past two years, but I keep hesitating because when I try, it feels as if my soul is being pulled from my chest. I do not want to lose the part of me that is connected to you—the part that makes me deeply happy, lights up my heart, and brings a smile so big it spreads across my face like a little puppy wagging its tail with excitement.

Before I learned you were still involved with your girlfriend and living with her, I kept trying to understand why you never truly tried to know me, be with me, love me, or care for me the way I loved you. In that moment, I realized why: your life and heart were already deeply connected somewhere else, and you were not free from that. From the beginning, I was free. I was only seeing you, only experiencing you, and only
loving you.

“I want to keep seeing you the way we always have, but it is an emotional rollercoaster to care so deeply for you and know that all I can have with you is the intimacy we share, and nothing more. I want to feel like I matter to you. After almost two years, I am not someone passing through your life. I accept that this is all you want with me, but I cannot be with anyone else because my heart has been tied to you, even if you do not feel the same. These are my feelings, and I have to let them go because I cannot have both with you.”

I spoke often about letting go because you kept telling me you cared about me, but that what we shared would only ever remain within the boundaries you had set. I was constantly caught between hoping you might eventually want more and knowing deep down that I might never mean the same to you. Even now, my heart and mind still tell me that there is a love between us that you may not fully see, understand, or know how to receive because of the battles within yourself that you have not yet faced. But am I being naïve to trust what I feel in my heart? Am I still gripping onto something I cannot control? And honestly, I do not want control if it means having someone in any way other than how it is divinely meant to be.

Returning to Myself

And perhaps this is where I am beginning to understand that this surrender is not only about letting go of someone I love. It is about returning to myself.

Today, as I sent my proposal for Little Balanced Beings to Larry, I realized how significant that moment actually was. For so long, I have been learning how to release the things I cannot control and redirect my energy toward the things that are mine to nurture. Little Balanced Beings is one of those things.

I had the idea for it three years ago, before I ever met you. I began building it then, but life became overwhelming, and I eventually had to set it down. Yet the idea never really left me. Somewhere inside, I always knew it was still waiting for me. And now, as I find my way back to myself, I feel that calling more clearly than I ever have.

Over the past few years, I experienced some of the most intense and difficult moments of my life. Much of what I was carrying, you never knew about because I carried it quietly. In some ways, the time I spent with you became a place where I could step outside of everything I was carrying and simply feel happy, connected, alive, and free for a little while. I don't judge myself for that. I understand now that we all find ways to survive the seasons that overwhelm us.

But slowly, something began to change.

Over the past year, and especially in these past few months, I have felt my own spark returning. I have been reclaiming the parts of myself I had given away so freely to other people and circumstances. I began asking myself different questions: What actually makes me happy? What do I want? What choices are mine? Are my words, actions, and decisions aligned with the life I say I want to live? What part of my life belongs to me?

And the more honestly I asked, the more clearly my soul answered.

I have always wanted to be a writer. I have always wanted to help people find their way back to themselves. I have always wanted to take what I have learned through my own healing and transform it into something meaningful for someone else.

That is what Little Balanced Beings has become for me.

I am not trying to change people or tell them how to live. I believe that when we truly begin wanting to change, it is often because we have reached one of the lowest places within ourselves—when we feel broken, empty, lost, or uncertain of everything we once believed. And in those moments, I believe we all deserve someone who sees us deeply. Someone who can recognize what we may not yet have the words to express. Someone who can offer a guiding light through the darkness without taking away our power to find our own way.

That is what I hope to create.

Through Little Balanced Beings, I want to help children, teens, young adults, and families reconnect with themselves and with one another. I want to help bring healing and love back into relationships. I want to create spaces where the deepest desires, fears, needs, and truths we often hold hostage inside ourselves can finally be spoken because we feel safe enough to share them.

And perhaps that is one of the greatest things this chapter of my life has given me.

I don't know whether meeting you was simply timing, divine connection, or some combination of things I may never fully understand. I only know that our paths crossed at a moment that changed me. Whatever our future holds, I know I will always carry a deep love and care for you because you changed my life.

But my love for you transformed into something I never expected.

It taught me that I am capable of loving someone completely and wholeheartedly while still choosing myself.

It taught me that loving someone does not require abandoning what I need, silencing what I desire, or placing another person's life above my own.

It taught me that I am capable of giving the kind of forever love I have always dreamed of giving—but that love deserves to be held by someone who values themselves and me with the same regard. Someone who understands that we are each responsible for tending to our own souls, following our own passions, and becoming the fullest versions of ourselves.

I want a love that adds to that light.

A love where two people can find what makes their own souls come alive and then choose to stand beside one another, not dimming each other's light, but making it shine even brighter. A love where wanting the best for someone sometimes means giving them the freedom to find their happiness, their peace, and the life their own heart is calling them toward—even when that means letting them go.

And maybe that is what I am being asked to do now.

To love you enough not to possess you.

To care enough to let you figure yourself out.

To trust you enough to follow your own heart.

To trust myself enough to follow mine.

And if, one day, your heart discovers that it desires me in the same way mine desires you, then I trust that our paths will find their way back to one another—not through force, fear, expectation, or persuasion, but through two people freely choosing each other.

And if they do not, then I trust that what God has for me will still be beautiful, because I am finally learning that my life cannot be placed on hold waiting for someone else to choose me.

I choose me.

I choose my purpose.

I choose my creativity.

I choose the work my soul has been calling me toward.

I choose the love I have to give the world.

And I choose to believe that what is truly meant for me will never require me to abandon myself to receive it.

So perhaps this is the deepest meaning of surrender.

It is not giving up on love.

It is giving up the need to control what love becomes.

It is releasing the person, the outcome, the timeline, and the story I thought I needed—and placing all of it in God's hands.

And then turning back toward my own life.

Toward the work waiting for me.

Toward the people I am meant to serve.

Toward the purpose that was placed in my heart long before I understood why.

Toward myself.

And trusting that when I walk in alignment with who I am and what I am here to give, what is meant to walk beside me will find me.

That is where I surrender.

That is where I trust.

That is where I begin again.