Well, yesterday turned out to be a big family drama day. It rained for most of it, and I fell asleep on the couch with the door of the hat shop open when the rain got heavy. One of my favorite things is falling asleep in that low white light and the water tapping the windows.

Jesus calling

It’s uncanny to me that every day after I write this blog, I usually read Sarah Young’s ‘Jesus Calling’. The book is a daily devotional. And every time, it’s like spot on for what I need. Yesterday was about understanding.

I find myself still holding on to the life before the transition. But could something have been different? Could you not have transitioned? I get into my victim. Look at what you did to me and my sister (we did go through A LOT—you don’t know the half of it). Maybe I could have had a different, better life if you had just been my dad. Those girls needed a dad.

But, God asks us not to try to understand its workings. “Understanding will never bring you peace,” says Sarah Young. “Human beings have a voracious appetite for trying to figure things out, in order to gain a sense of mastery over their lives. But the world presents you with an endless series of problems. As soon as you master one set, another pops up to challenge you.”

I have a natural posture of resistance. Resistance to accepting the world as it is. I’m often an idealist, wanting life to fall into the place of ease and beauty, love and care. I can find myself frustrated when it doesn’t. I can find myself wanting to remain in control, make sense of things, so we can change them. But that’s my will, not God’s.

I’m reminded that I don’t have to try to understand what happened to my father or why she transitioned. I just have to accept that this is part of God’s plan for me and my family. And remember that I chose this. I chose this life. These parents. This body. This world. And in that, we surrender to the unfolding, not holding onto what could have been. Along for the crazy trip of life and the unique things we get to do, we get to learn.

And what a gift, then, that life becomes.

And in that acceptance, we’re brought back to feel the posture of surrender. For which I’ve talked about previously, for which is a constant, active choice. And wow, truly, how much easier life gets!

But that doesn’t mean that I’m not discerning. That doesn’t mean that I surrender to and accept abusive behavior, belittling, or asking me to take my writing down. That doesn’t mean that I surrender to my every reactive whim or emotion. God’s plan, the divine in everything, needs us to be able to discriminate the dark from the light.

Surrender is always married to discernment 

Read that again. Surrender is always married to discernment.

You choose where you surrender and what you surrender to. You would not surrender to a man who’s not following God. You would not surrender to a continued cycle of gaslighting, narcissism, and selfishness that continues to bring your life pain and disconnection.

You know, and you feel, what brings more life, aliveness, and light into your life and what doesn’t.

The word surrender can feel scary for native English speakers, me included.

Surrender, in our culture, only often associated with collapse, with defeat, with being overpowered, and you now powerless. It’s a militarized word in the English language. It's a mistake to think that surrender is somehow passive.

When you look at surrender in other languages, they don’t have that connotation. We don’t have many words in the English language for love, God, or beauty. Other languages have hundreds to describe those things. Some languages have spirituality threaded right into them: Sanskrit, Hebrew, Arabic. But, our language is clunky and limiting, again, highly militarized.

It means that my own programming, my own resistance to surrender into life, to the Divine, to God’s will, to accept the things that have happened in my life, and what will happen next, has layers of disconnection. We’re always working through the layers that separate us, that create the illusion of separateness. Language is one of them.

But when we understand surrender as the active act of acceptance and trust, always married to discernment, we can feel the empowerment of that choice. Of the active relationship created and maintained with the Divine. God asks you to come home over and over again, with no judgment or punishment.

_{Side note: I often switch around terms like God and the Divine. I typically mean the same thing, although some may find this confusing. If you do, let me know and I’ll refine how I’m using them.}

Sunflowers

It’s part of a dharmic lifestyle to have no attachment to the outcome, to what happens next. And I can’t do that if I’m still holding on to what could have been. That’s identifying with victimhood. That’s keeping in my karma.

And so I’m grateful for what happened, the greatest gift and greatest teachers of my life.

The ripple effects, the unfolding, leading me here today, speaking to you.

I can’t say I might be doing this if something like that hadn’t happened.

And I have to be reminded that I’m living a dream right now. Living in an RV, writing daily, making fans, practicing devotionally, riding a motorcycle, spending time with a Grandma who shows me love and fun, being in one of the most beautiful places in the country, learning the hat business, following the rodeo circuit (like what), and talking with a handsome man who is genuinely curious about me.

We have sunflowers on the table and strong coffee in the morning. I touch the grass outside of the RV and look at the mountain peaks with the sun in my eyes. I say good morning to the landscape and remember how incredible and beautiful and special it is to simply be alive.

Love,
Val

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Send in your prayers

Every Sunday at 1 PM MST, I’m going to be making a collective prayer. How can I pray for you this week? Are you going through something major or just need someone to hold your becoming with a little care? Whatever it might be, send me a note by replying to this email. All personal and confidential info is kept anonymous. Prayers will be live-streamed on Zoom.