Five Minute Friday: SURRENDER

Welcome to this week’s Five Minute Friday. Our instructions, via creator Kate Motaung: “Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation.”

Today’s prompt: SURRENDER

From the moment I saw that today’s word was “surrender,” I have had an earworm of I Surrender All. I couldn’t begin to count how often I have sung or played that song over the course of my life, especially during all the Southern Baptist years.

I don’t think God really wants me to surrender right now so much as He wants me to fight. It has taken so much longer than I would have thought to come out of the fog created by being a primary caregiver for three years. Dad died in July and I feel like I am just starting to be able to organize my days and my energy better. Never underestimate the drain on your life and spirit of almost constant stress.

(On the topic of almost constant stress, though, I want to acknowledge that my situation could have been so much worse. We were able to secure respite care so I could do things outside of the home and so he could have supervision the last month or two when it was impossible to do my at-home work uninterrupted because his needs had gotten so much more intense. Some people deal with this much longer than we did, with much less support. It’s not a competition, I know, but it’s important to acknowledge that I recognize their struggles.)

It is tempting to shy away from making hard decisions and taking bigger risks. Fifty-three isn’t that old but there comes a time when some choices are no longer options. However, I suppose the upside of the new gig-oriented economy and all the technological changes in industry means some jobs exist I couldn’t possibly have known about even ten years ago.

Therefore, I am not totally embracing the surrender idea tonight unless it’s to say “no surrender” to the hurdles I am putting in my own way of recovering professionally and (by virtue of that) getting out of debt.

(Full disclosure — this took a bit longer than five minutes. I wasn’t willing to surrender when the timer beeped.)

Also, I ran across this song by Clay Crosse when I was considering adding a video. It’s different from the traditional I Surrender All. I like the line “I surrender all my silent hopes and dreams.” In a way, that is a total contrast to what I wrote, but in a way it isn’t — silent hopes and dreams still have a prayer of succeeding if they are verbalized and written down — if we hold ourselves accountable.

This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday linkup.

Paula Kiger

Wife of one, Mom of two, Friend of many. My pronouns are she/her/hers.