Concrete Words: Yield

(Well, this is one I never published. But, I reread it today and decided to put it out there. I never linked it up to Concrete Words. But this is my take on the prompt: Yield.)

It was more an utter and complete collapse into resignation than a gentle yield of my heart. The anger had won again. The rage had swept through our home leaving chaos and torn hearts. I had tried every method, every discipline, every formula, every verse… and failed. Here I was in a familiar state of despair. But this time, on year ago, I gave in. I quit. And that was when I finally did what I should have all along.

I asked for help.

Not the kind of help that hands you another title to pick up at Barnes and Nobles or suggests another verse to memorize. This was the kind of help that looks you in the eyes and sees the pain you’ve pretended wasn’t there; the kind of help that wants to reach out and weep for that grief so buried in your soul. These were the types of hearts that wonder out loud why you feel like you need to suck it up.

They saw my wounds and were amazed I had stood so long.

It wasn’t that I hadn’t ever tried to yield or submit. I spent years yielding to people’s ideas of how to fix my crisis. I yielded to the demands I put on myself to right this sinking ship. I yielded to expectations that I suspected God had of me. But there was always a neglected person left behind.

Me…

And people were wondering where she had gone, while I was convinced they were better off not knowing her.  I left her abandoned way back at the intersection of, “Oh, that was dealt with in the past,” and “I’m a new creature in Christ.” It took my failure to slow me down long enough to hear her voice crying, “Wait for me, wait up.”

This was a new kind of yield to me. I risked transparency, and was met with grace. I risked full disclosure and was met with forgiveness and compassion. I allowed myself to be known, my whole self that I still want to tuck out of view from time to time. There in those exposed moments I found the comfort of a warm embrace.

Christ had been there all along. I desperately needed him to step into the fullness of my being. It took surrendering my need to do it by myself and allowing people to be vessels of the love he had reserved for me.

In this season, the Lord led me to lay down my arms, to stop my fight to survive. I’ve surrendered the defenses that veiled my lack. I set aside the weapons I used to push everyone away. I’ve come to a season when my heart is learning that it needs to rest from the internal war that has inflicted a life time of damage upon an already wounded heart and upon those who desired to show me they love me.

I still hide at times. Dark clouds still descend in difficult seasons. I just got through one of those. But I am no longer alone in my pain. I no longer fight those battles without someone at my back. And that is the very good fruit that has been borne out of this surrender.