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. My daughter 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 Troy asked what we were holding onto that we knew we needed to release, I knew immediately.

Just before service began, I had written this in my notes to someone who has been deeply significant to me—the person I have spent the past two years writing to, reflecting on, and learning from:

Love is not a possession to keep; it is a gift to cherish.

For two years, I have spoken to the Lord about what I feel for you.

I have struggled to let go because what I feel for you is real to me. But I am beginning to understand that loving someone does not mean I get to determine what that love becomes.

There were things I did not understand about your life, and there were truths I eventually learned that hurt deeply. I can have compassion for the battles someone is facing without excusing the ways those choices affected me. I can love someone and still recognize that I cannot control their choices, their timing, or their willingness to meet me where I am.

And perhaps that is the question I have been asking myself all along: Am I trusting what I feel, or am I gripping onto something I cannot control?

I don't want control if having someone means having them 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.

Part of finding my way back to that calling has meant understanding what I was trying to escape from in the first place. Over the past few years, I found myself carrying weights that were never meant for me. I had to learn to stand up for myself, release what was not mine to carry, and surrender the responsibility for other people's choices back to where it belonged. 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.

I don't know what the future holds, or where our paths may lead. But I trust God with that. I trust that what He has for me will be beautiful, whether that includes you or leads me somewhere I cannot yet imagine.

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.