16. June 2026
The Choice of Surrender
A broken Christian is a difficult concept to understand and an easy one to judge. We often see this in the difficulty of accepting certain types of people as we try to live out the heart of Christ.
The world expects wholesome, well-adapted Christians while forgetting that many of us must function at the same capacity as everyone else while simultaneously healing from our own pain and wounds caused by the grief of our lives.
There is a whole other level of complexity that damaged Christians move through, and it is important to acknowledge this. We do not function through the same channels as those who were afforded the opportunity of normal lives. We know the Word, we know the Father, and we know the weight and urgency of the calling. However, the problem lies in activating care and service toward the very vessels who could potentially increase the damage to the remnants of our broken little hearts.
A mind forged in chaos, abuse, and violence can create a person devoid of reason or purpose. There is no life to live, but rather a life to survive. All the things you learn in this environment become a system of jagged mazes that carry you into tainted paths which you either learn to overcome or drown in, there are no other options.
Though we have long histories of damage, we cannot allow ourselves to remain "broken Christians" until the day we die. Yes, we are in pain, and yes, we carry traumas, but our freedom from those things lies in our surrender.
The word "surrender" activates a deep-seated fear within a broken person. How do you reconcile surrender when all you know is pain and disappointment? Who do you surrender to when everyone you ever trusted broke what they were meant to care for? And most importantly, how do you surrender to a God who allowed the traumas you have lived through?
These questions plagued me, and they kept me frozen in a state of dysfunction. How? Who? Why?
In my case, life had taught me all about depression, anxiety, anger, and bitterness. These were the lessons that drove my daily life. I harbored so much baggage and resentment, and I knew them all so well. I recounted them in my mind so often as a reminder of why life was so unsafe. There was no way for me to create healthy relationships with anyone I met. There was no one I would allow myself to trust, and I saw every single person as a threat—each one a future source of pain that I could surely count on.
I had lived so deeply in pain and fear that I had long ago learned to build walls around myself that no sane person ever tried to break through, and no part of me ever wanted to bring them down. I liked it in my little darkened space; it was the only thing I knew and the only place where I felt safe. I had not yet realized all the things that kind of life was stealing from me. I did not realize the distortion through which I moved or how the lie of synthetic safety stole what could have been many new beginnings.
Though I was born into the church, the history I dragged behind me was a chain of pure deception that kept me captive in my sin. I walked through life in anger. I rarely enjoyed where I was, who I was with, or what I had. I either feared it, mistrusted it, or expected to eventually lose it; thus, I would not allow myself to become attached.
Because of this, I lived my life surrounded by acquaintances, but I never allowed myself to feel like I belonged. It is a sad reality and an effective way for the enemy to keep us blinded and far from our purpose. Isolation is one of his favorite tools. How easy it is to keep someone blind and trapped in their own flawed thoughts and beliefs when isolation becomes a go-to coping mechanism.
I have shared before the ways in which my mother moved in patterns of negativity and victimhood. She sang the same old story for so many years that the narrative became exhausting, yet comfortingly familiar. Yes, comforting. Sickening as that sounds, what you repeat becomes your home. She loved to speak of her misery and recounted it as many times as she could, to as many people as would listen.
However, in her cycle of dysfunction, she helped mold the mindset that would keep me captive for most of my life. She loved to compare me to all the people she hated, and her lack of growth would often play a central role in many moments of embarrassment and destruction in my own life.
My father, an abusive heavy drinker whose favorite manner of communication at the time was violence, and whose lack of mercy and patience resulted in my witnessing many nights in which he dragged my mother by the hair across our house. Bruises, verbal abuse, threats, silent treatments, and other forms of emotional punishment were the norm within our home, all aided or supported by his mother and sisters, with whom we had lived since our arrival from our country. Life was messy, and each parent contributed to many years of broken memories and toxic patterns that I eventually acquired as my own.
In truth, both of my parents have lived their own versions of broken childhoods and broken histories. Both of their lives were marked by violence, abuse, abandonment, rejection, and even witchcraft, which was practiced by my great-grandparents and forced upon their children, creating traumas from which many of them never recovered. In any circle of the world, one could say that my parents were justified in being the way they were, but in God, there is simply no excuse and no justification that could ever stand before Him. He is our Redeemer. He is our hope. He is simply everything He has ever said He is, but in rejecting His truth, we rob ourselves of allowing the Lord to show us just how good His love can be and how great a Father He truly is.
Eventually, there comes a point in everyone's life at which blaming others for the way we live can no longer continue to be the excuse we use to remain stagnant in our walk. We will be required to make a choice, and we will be required to stand in judgment for that choice.
Let us not fool ourselves into thinking that attending church is all there is to life in Christ. I attended church for many years and yet lived captive within my own mentality. If we do not allow ourselves to know, serve, and be molded by our community in the Lord, we will continue to live like wild beasts—blind, broken, and wasting God's precious design for our lives.
I used to wonder just how much I had lost during the many years I lived this way. I tortured myself with regret and frustration, but little by little, God replaced these torments with His healing truth. He began to replace words long ago etched into my heart and mind by the broken souls around me, and He began His work of renewing my mind with the precious things He says.
Romans 8:28 states, “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”
I had to chose to trust that the Lord would do this in my life. I had to continuously choose to allow the Lord to work in me, and this required me to know Him more deeply.
Recovery is not as simple as it sounds. Broken minds are a brutal challenge to begin to change. Old wounds, old titles, and old identities must come down, but how do you do that when this is all you have known for most of your life?
In my case, the Lord had to bring me to a point at which I had no choice but to depend on Him. I was riddled with anxiety, fear, and so many other toxic patterns that made me wish for death itself. I had to trust Him. But to do that, I first had to ask myself, “Will I continue to make excuses? Will I continue to play the victim my life depicted? Or will I allow God to forge a new narrative with the new life He has offered?”
Having reached a season of life in which I now had my own daughters, the choice was no longer optional. I could continue the family tradition of brokenness and dysfunction, or I could offer them an opportunity to see their lives unfold differently than mine had. The Lord had been speaking to my heart for many years in preparation for what was on its way. I wish I could say I responded quickly to His voice, but I truly made Him—and everyone who loved me—work hard before I finally cracked.
Eventually, I understood that what you refuse to face will certainly become the plague that destroys any sign of life within you and will inevitably spread to those around you.
All my life, I wanted God to use me. I wanted to be a beacon that kept others from experiencing the misery I went through. But each time He tried to use me, I resisted Him. I shrank back in fear, unbelief, and denial because, after all, I felt like such a worthless creature. This was what life had taught me; this was all I knew.
God began to work on my identity. In that work, He somehow kept a flame ablaze that compelled me to keep asking Him to take this life I lived and make it worth the pain I had gone through. Somewhere beneath my pseudo-“acceptance” of what life was, I still felt bitter, and in those private moments when I would pray in anger, my heart revealed where my brokenness was coming from.
I did not realize it at the time, but in every moment in which I cried out with all the vile things within me, God was meeting me right where I was. He was allowing me to pour out the pain I was carrying and relieving the pressure cooker in which I had been living.
We often feel embarrassed when the truth comes out. We feel accused and exposed by the imperfections of our weakness and can often walk away in shame. But when you know who God is, you understand there is no shame He wants to impart upon us. God's intention is always to provide pathways to redemption as we bring Him who we truly are.
Ever since I decided to open this blog, I have battled many insecurities. I have battled myself so deeply, but I believe this is part of what God is calling me to do. I want my imperfections to show and God's grace to shine through my testimony. I had to come to a place of surrender for this to be achieved. I had to move within the confines of the fears I carried and let God lead me through all the reasons I had not to obey.
In my "About Me" section, I shared how God allowed me to see a need in people, and I wanted to be a part of the restoration of whoever God would bring to me, yet I had no interest in being known or seen. When I shared those thoughts with my friend, she responded wisely by reminding me that God had called me to be a light to the world. She added that the Word clearly states that we are to be a city on a hill that cannot be hidden.
Matthew 5:14 (NIV)
"You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden."
Obedience is frightening, especially to someone who has been continuously shredded by the claws of life, yet there is no way around it. The Lord's calling comes with obedience that surpasses understanding. Sometimes what He requires makes absolutely zero sense! I have fought with the Lord on almost every single thing He has ever said. I can almost guarantee that I have resisted Him 110% on every avenue He presented, and yet my faith for others has never once wavered. I believe there is salvation. I believe there is hope for anyone who chooses it. This belief helps me put my fears aside and obey God's calling.
I'm still learning to surrender. It still frightens me each time the calling brings a new direction, but I no longer have the option to look past it. I either surrender through the fears and critical voices, or I lose the calling God has so graciously offered me.
Yes, obedience to the Lord feels brutal to our flesh. It is not easy! But I do not want to shrink anymore. I do not want to dishonor what can potentially bring glory to His name, and I do not want to rob those who have invested in my life.
Surrender is a choice. You choose who and what you will surrender to each day. As for me, I have made my choice. I will serve the God I trust in. I will seek Him each time that trust fails me, and I will cry as many times as I need to, but I will serve Him.
I have already surrendered. The choice is made and final. I encourage you to make your choice and come to know the Father. You will find the source of all you have been lacking.
I have learned through out the years, that you cannot trust whom you have no relationship with, no opportunity to show how much they love you. So come and know Him, know His heart, and find your worth in Him.
Jeremiah 31:3 New International Version
3 The Lord appeared to us in the past,[a] saying:
“I have loved you with an everlasting love;
I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.