I am so incredibly blessed. If it sounds like I am about to gush about how great my life is, I am. But, bear with me, please? There is a point.

I am married to the greatest man I have ever met. He is loyal and trustworthy. His heart is naturally unselfish. He works so hard, he sweats. Even when he is broken and depleted, he gives.

We have 2 ridiculous ginger children. A 4-year-old boy named Ryder and a 2-year-old Princess-Anna-PowerRanger-Dora-Sofia (or as her birth certificate restrictively states, Jayne). They are amazing. They are healthy. They are alive! I had easy pregnancies and uneventful deliveries. Many of my friends do not have this story.

We have purchased and sold a home, and are just about debt-free. We have a Costco membership and a flat screen TV on a full motion swivel mount; extra-fast wireless internet with Netflix and Hulu-Plus (thanks Sarah and Ben). I made my coffee this morning in my Keurig and have a peek-a-boo view of the water as I watch the sun rise this morning.

We do not live in excess, but excess is unfamiliar and unattractive to me, anyway.

I feel like my whole life I have lived inside a protected, calculated bubble. There were horrors that afflicted even my closest family members growing up, but I was spared.

You know those people that everything seems to work out for, just as they want it to or at least close to it? Don’t you hate them?

Sometimes, I feel like that’s me. I am ridiculously far from perfect and have a pretty colorful past and present, but as far as my “life plan,” very little that I have planned out for myself has not come to pass in one fashion or another. Of course, some things look different than I thought, but my life is far from plagued with suffering. 

I’m entitled, I feel deserving. Where there’s a will, there’s a way . . .

I have worked hard. Risen above. Defeated my demons.

Right?

But, in the next breath, I will tell you I have been blessed by God. I will tell you of His Provision and mean every word.

I am comfortable – and for the first time in my life, that terrifies me. 

My character is ugly and THAT terrifies me. I know that I am a credit-seeker. I want to matter. I want to change the world.

Sometimes, in the name of Jesus.

That is what is desperately wrong within my heart. I am torn between giving all I have to God “for his glory” and being really happy with my life and marginally grateful to my Genie God that always seems to be on my side and offers me a fresh start when I say too many cuss words in a day.

It occurs to me that I don’t really know what it feels like to be SURRENDERED TO GOD. My problem is my life is TOO GOOD. I’m guessing yours is too if you really think about it. Not everyone I know and love has this story, but many do.

I do not yet know the line between loving God’s gifts and forgetting they are His to hold.

To be honest, the weight of succeeding in this life is too much for me. There are things I am unprepared to lose once I have gained them.

But here is what I am wondering.

Why is it that I feel like if I surrender the things (the people) I love the most deeply that God will most likely take them away? That is my fundamental fear.

I want to be in a place that I believe God plans to use the things I love for great things and to desperately hope I get to be along for the ride. I want to TRUST GOD unconditionally and be a part of building eternity.

Jesus says this: those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.

It’s hard for me to picture emptying myself when I know rich friendships, deep commitment and the snuggles of ginger children.

It is hard for me to picture pouring myself out when I can’t separate painful loss from that equation.

I can’t wait until I can say that I am willing to risk the deepest loss to trust and follow my Redeemer God — while being deeply thankful for the fullness I get to experience in my life and trust that God wants the very best for me and those that I love.

I believe that God is good. I believe that He loves me. I have experienced this Love deeply and want desperately for the whole world to know it too.

I feel like God has made surrendering hard for me.

I believe that is the point.

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” – Jim Elliot