What Happened to My Life When I Fully Surrendered it to God

Today I want to share what I think is the most important, most intimate part of the journey I have taken with God.  This story here is one of those fork in the road moments in life.  I had two choices and I chose Jesus and it has led me to the life I have now.  So grab some coffee, tea or popcorn.  It’s a long one!

For this story we need to go back to 2011, when I was freshly single after being in a 6 year dysfunctional relationship.  To make that very long story short – I had a moment in the relationship where I realized I was living a very mediocre life and I felt a stirring in my spirit God had so much more for me.  So I did the very hard thing and walked away from the toxic relationship and soon after I started to see my life going from mediocre to extraordinary.  I began going to church alone which was a huge deal for me  because I dealt with a fear doing things alone.  I decided to take a risk and attend services alone and that is where the shift really started.  I was gifted a bible by a customer at the bank I worked at and I began reading it and it was like scales were falling off my eyes.  I saw things I had never seen before and I was experiencing an emotion I had never experienced before – pure joy. 

Well, I was almost one year single until the thing I thought I escaped and my weakness showed up – a man.  Now I won't go into too much detail on how this was an area of brokenness was established in my life because I want to expand on how this happened to me in a separate post, but basically my relationship with my father or my lack of one I should say caused me to search for what I was supposed to get and learn from him, which was my identity, worth, and value, so I searched for it in men as I grew up.   So back to where I was.  When I finally had made my mind up that I was going to stay single for a long time because I wanted to enjoy my new life, my new freedom and grow in my relationship with God that’s when I was derailed.  The truth was I wasn’t really free, and I was still finding my worth and value in men.  I even convinced myself this is the man God had for me because he was (at the time) so good to me.  It wasn’t a toxic relationship like my previous relationship or the other guys who tried to pursue me.  I thought it was God’s will because it wasn’t bad.  The truth is, deep down I really knew it wasn’t, I was just too broken to break free from it.  The entire time I was dating this guy I had a lack of peace in my spirit.  I even knew I didn’t want to have sex with him because I wanted to remain pure for God.  No one taught me about purity and I never knew what it was to remain pure and save yourself for your husband.  I just knew it felt wrong and it was because I was attending church and reading the bible my mind was being renewed and I was being transformed to think like Jesus, to have His mind.

One month after dating he asked me to be his girlfriend and because I was still broken and afraid to lose him, I said yes.  I pushed down the voice of Holy Spirit (which I didn’t know that is Who was speaking to me at the time) and gave in.  We dated for one year.  I spent almost every weekend at his place and when I left Sunday afternoons to go back home.  I cried ENTIRE DRIVE HOME. Like seriously.  There is no exaggeration in that statement.  I never knew why I was crying at the time, but now I know the Holy Spirit was grieved and that is why I was crying.  Even writing about it now makes me want to cry because I was hurting the heart of God when I was allowing myself to be in this relationship and giving my body and soul to a man that was not God’s best for me and not my husband.  God loved me so much and He missed me and I put him aside while I made this man my world.  I stopped going to church and I stopped reading the bible, but I never stopped praying and talking to God.  I still talked to Him every day and that is kept me connected the entire time I was in this mess. I still cried out to him and that is what allowed Him to come in and intervene like He did.  You see we all have a free will.  God gave us choice.  I prayed over and over again, “God if this isn’t your will then end the relationship and help me stop loving him” as if God was literally going to force me to stay away and control my heart.  That is not how it works.  God is a gentleman; He doesn’t force anything on us.  God says in His word “Today I am giving you a choice between life and death, between prosperity and disaster. For I command you this day to love the Lord your God and to keep his commands, decrees, and regulations by walking in his ways. If you do this, you will live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you and the land you are about to enter and occupy.” Deuteronomy 30:15-20 (NLT)

Notice He says I am giving you a CHOICE.  I knew deep down this was not the relationship God wanted me to be in.  And someone may read this and think, “well how did you know?”   Because this relationship was taking me away from God.  Anything that pulls you away from God is not from God.  It’s just that simple.  It’s not His will and it’s not what He has for you.  I share all of this because I have seen people in my life, mostly women because we seem to be the ones desperate for men (sigh) who begin a beautiful journey with the Jesus like I was and then they meet a guy -  a guy who is a “really good guy” who loves them and treats them well, they have a good job and even good looks too but they draw them away from the heart of God.  These guys may entertain your belief in God and may even attend church with you every so often until you decide to stop going because you eventually draw away from God completely.  Let me just said it very plain here – if you love God and desire a relationship with Him you will not put a man (or any person or thing) before Jesus.  It’s harsh but it’s true.  This isn’t just for women, men also replace God with women.   

So, I pushed Jesus aside and I chose this guy instead.  Well thank God for His mercy and patience and Him honoring my prayers the entire year we were dating because He rescued me.  Here’s a funny detail Holy Spirit just reminded me of.  When this guy asked me to be his girlfriend, I was excited and happy, but I still had that small check in my spirit that it was not the right way to go, but at the time my emotions overrode God’s voice. However, that small check in my spirit lead me to pray this prayer -  “God, I am going to give this relationship one year and if this isn’t what you want for me then I ask you to end it by then” I still am so amused by this prayer! A year?! First of all this shows my age…I was like 26 and I clearly didn’t value time the way I do now.  How could I just easily give a year of my life away like that.  But here’s the even crazier part.  Exactly one year from the very day I met this guy we had a random fight that COMPLETELY UNRAVELED THE RELATIONSHIP.  It was as if a mask was taken off his face and I saw who he really was.  Or the other way around, I had scales removed from my eyes and I finally saw what I didn’t see all along.  Now I know I said that God doesn’t come in and just control our lives, but here is what he DOES do.  He answer prayers and I prayed for His will in my life wholeheartedly and I prayed it the entire year I was in that relationship.  I never stopped truly desiring the will of God for my life.  God knew I wasn’t strong enough to get myself out and I desperately needed His help and strength to do it.  He knew the areas of bondage I still had in my life.  He saw the brokenness and knew it is what kept me bound in that relationship.  My desire was ultimately for God all along but I was not healed from hurts in my past (that is another blog) which would free me from codependency on a man.

It took me one month after that fight broke out to finally leave the relationship and because I didn’t walk away when I knew I was being given the all clear by God to leave it got bad.  See, God knows us so intimately and he knew what it would finally take to get me to walk away for good. He never wants to go that far because going that far causes more pain and is messier, but He is a faithful God and He was determined on rescuing me, no matter what it took.   On my last ditch effort to make the relationship work, even after I knew at this point I was blatantly disobeying God I went over to my ex’s house.  It was such a cold encounter when I walked it, it was like I was walking into hell. I know – we associate hell as hot and fiery, but I say hell is the absence of God.  I sat down on the sofa next to him and he looked checked out and disengaged.  I finally had it and confronted him and asked what his issue was, and he basically went off.  He told me things that completely devalued me as a woman and as a person.  He had never spoken to me this way the entire relationship – actually he was quite the opposite. In the past few months before this I was so unsettled in my spirit and dealt with so much stress I lost a lot of weight and he told me how unattractive I looked because I was so thin.  He told me I wasn’t on “his level” because he just bought a house and I owned nothing.  There were worse things I’d rather not repeat on here, but that gets the point across.  I was being torn down with words and I felt the power of those words in my heart.  I didn’t respond, not even with two words.  I was afraid of what would come out.  I got my keys, walked out and never looked back.  In that moment I knew God was making it very easy for me to finally leave.  He knew what I would no longer tolerate. 

I was finally free.  Now I share all of that not to bash an ex-boyfriend but to get to this part of the story.  One month after I finally walked away, and we broke up I was out with a large group friends enjoying happy hour at El Torito celebrating the end of finals.  I get a call from my ex and I stupidly step aside and took it.  I had not had any contact with him prior to this.  When I walked out after the last encounter we had he didn’t call me to “get me back” and I sure as heck didn’t call him.  I can’t remember why I took the call.  I think I was feeling so happy with all my friends and confident that I was moved past the break-up I thought I could handle it.  I think I even thought he was calling because he wanted me back, but I was ready to turn him down and move on with my life.  Well the phone call went like this “Hi Cherise, I am not calling to tell you I miss you or I want you back but to say sorry for how it ended” I was livid.  I wanted to hear I was missed and how much he wanted me back because I wanted to feel loved and wanted.  I hung up the phone, sat in my seat and cried and cried in front of everyone.  I was so embarrassed that all my friends (guys and girls) were sitting around me and I was crying but I was in so much pain I couldn’t hold in my tears.  Everyone looked at me with this sad look in their eyes.  I felt so pathetic.  I felt crushed and there was no where to hide surrounded by all my friends.  Oh yes there was, the restroom stall.  I went the to the restroom to really cry.  Two of my friends come in shortly after and stand in the stall with me as I am crying.  Luckily, I chose the bigger stall to cry in.  It was such a low moment for me.  No one saw any of the other stuff that went on.  All the tears I cried before were hidden in my car on my drive to school and in my bed late at night.  No one was supposed to witness my pain and my heart break.  The next morning, I was in a haze.  I remember feeling like I was “crucified” in my flesh.  I felt like I had a small idea of the emotional anguish Jesus went through right before he was crucified. I took the next two weeks to cry and cry.  I never cried so much.  My tears weren’t over my ex, they were over what my soul longed for, to be wanted, loved and truly accepted.  I only knew how to get that from a man and when he called me that day while I was at El Torito to remind me he didn’t want me my soul could not handle the pain. I only ever knew how to get my worth and validation from a man and when he wasn’t giving it to me then I felt worthless. 

I took this all to God in prayer.  I cried out to Him to help me, to heal my heart from the wound in my past that caused this need for love, acceptance, and validation from a man.  This is where God wanted me.  He wanted me to say no to a man I could see to say yes to a Man I couldn’t see – Jesus.  That is where everything I ever wanted and needed was, in the person of Jesus.  I was created to be validated and to be loved and accepted but by Jesus first.  My worth and value was to be found in Jesus and not some guy.  Once God started to show me how much He loved me in the weeks that followed that phone call everything began to change for me.  On December 31, 2012 there was a complete shift in my heart and I knew my life would never be the same.  I fully surrendered my 2013 (yes, a WHOLE YEAR) to Jesus.  When I say fully surrendered, I mean FULLY surrendered.  I just stood back and watched Him work.  I wish I could say it was more exciting but it wasn’t.  It hurt like hell.  Maybe because hell was visiting me every day tempting me to go back to what was comfortable to me.  Almost everyday I questioned God, but I still trusted God knew what He was doing with my life.  By July 2013 I wanted to crawl into a hole and die. I was freshly graduated from college and I had no plan for my life.  God was silent.  September 2013 I moved out of my parents house and everything changed for me.  Moving out and being in my own space allowed me to really reflect on my year and I saw I was on a crash course with God and He was actually doing an amazing transformation in my life.  It was so hard.  So, so hard to get to that point.  I had to die to my flesh daily.  I was in pure amazement in how much a person can change when they have a heart after God, when they fully surrender their life to God and pursue Him and only Him.  I was a lot of hard work.  It took sacrifice, and continued obedience to what He was asking me to do, but God graced me for all of it.   Just because it was not easy didn’t mean it was wrong.  I think there is this misconception that once we say yes to God it is all going to be so easy.  He never promised us that.  What He does promise us is life when we follow His ways.  The pain I went through when I was denying my flesh what it wanted to “feel good” was not the same pain I felt when I was out of God’s will.  The pain I felt when I was out of God's will was this deep ache in my soul, an emptiness that was never filled.  When it’s God’s will there is a special grace for it.  I completely repented of my former ways and it brought me so much joy. I also promised God I would remain pure until my wedding night and not date until He gave me CLEAR direction of the man that was allowed to pursue me.

Two years after I fully said yes to God I was a completely brand new person.  I was confident, joyful, I was being authentic in my relationships and to myself.  I was compassionate and patient something I never was before.  I was comfortable in my own skin, knowing I am enough, and I am loved.  I was stingy with my time and who I chose to spend it with.  I was my version of brave and did things with boldness realizing I was created in the image of God. I learned to say no when I meant no and yes when I meant yes.  I believed in myself and my ability.  I learned to be my greatest cheerleader and not depend of the approval of others.  I realized that even if I don’t know something, the Holy Spirit inside of me does!  It was so refreshing to know that I could finally concentrate on getting the beautiful spirit inside of me to a higher level.  To nurture that spirit and allow God to bring out the person I was created to be all along.  Every time I hit a rough patch that required stretching, I would just hold on tight and allow God to do the work He needed to get me where he wanted me.  And six years later I can say with confidence God has gotten me exactly where he wants me and I am living out His perfect will for my life.  Jesus rescued me; He broke me free from the bondage I was in.  I stayed single for four years and pure until my wedding night.  And now even with the most wonderful husband I have who is constantly leading me closer to Jesus, Jesus is still and will forever be my first love – the One who gives me value, unfailing love, acceptance and Who my identity is in.  This is how we are created to live, with the full love and acceptance of Jesus.  

See this story isn't how I got over a bad break up or even how I was hurt by a guy.  It's to say that we all seek to satisfy our soul with something that only God can satisfy.  My story involved a boyfriend, but for someone else it could be a job, food, a shopping habit, sex, status, beauty, even good things like a child or a position in ministry.  It can even be your doubt or disbelief in God that is keeping you from saying yes to Him.  Whatever it is, confess it to Him and tell Him you want His perfect will for your life. 

When we put God first He adds to our life all the good we desire. That has been my story.  It was never wrong or bad for me to desire a man, but God wanted to know if I desired him more. And he wanted to bring me the man He had for me, His very best.  If you are in a place where you want to fully surrender your life to God but it's hard for you to give up that thing that is stopping you from going all in I want  to encourage you to keep praying and crying out to God.  He is faithful and He help you say yes to Him!

                                               My baptism in July 2013 with my baby brother