Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Surrender


Today Eye Spy is wearing a pink panther suit and a smile while creeping around the Blogger-sphere and sharing intimate secrets.

There is a blogfest to celebrate the release of Elana Johnson's second book in a series, SURRENDER, which came out June 5, 2012. Check out her blog and her book HERE.



So all I have to do for this blogfest is blog about a time that I did not surrender. That was not as easy as I thought it would be. Thinking about what I should write I discovered that my whole life has been mostly about surrendering. There I am the first in line, waving a white flag in order to keep peace. Surrender and sacrifice seem to go hand in hand as I reflect through the choices I have made in my life. 

As a young girl and the oldest of siblings, I made sure my brother and sisters were taken care of when my parents could not. My father was always out traveling and my mother did the best she could in a world she did not belong in. Sports, music, drama were all things I loved in school but gave up quickly when I found out they had no room in my life. Besides, we moved around so much that I always ended up starting over again. As a teen-age girl I ended up pregnant and giving my baby up for adoption. Another form of surrender and sacrifice because I was convinced his life would be better off with someone else. My first marriage failed and once again I waved the white flag. I didn’t fight through the custody battle for my daughter; instead I believed she would be better off with her father. I went on vacation to Norway and never went back.  There have been times in my life that I have surrendered to drugs, to alcohol, to food, and to any overindulgent thing I could find in order to escape one thing or another. I have been a gambler, a workaholic, and I have exercised every muscle in my body through excessive training. I have even gone from one church to another looking for God. Music, art, and writing have always been another form of surrender, overindulgence and sacrifice. These things move like waves through my life. One form of creative expression washes ashore and another takes its place. I surrender to each one.

This blogfest is about sharing the times you did not surrender, but maybe surrendering is not always a bad thing. Maybe sometimes we have to surrender in order to move on.

“Like a tiny boat on the sea
Waves just keep crashing over me
I can fight to make the shore
Or ride the waves and fight no more.”

Don't get me wrong. I admire people who endure and against all odds keep fighting with the same spirit as William Wallace in "Brave Heart.Sometimes we are just not faced with a simple option to a simple choice. Sometimes surrender will still get us where we were meant to be without the fight of getting there, sometimes not. Believing in something strong enough and most of all believing in yourself is a start. 




 What do I know, after all I am wearing a pink panther suit. So do you think I am a quitter now ? Far from it, I just choose carefully when to fight. I finished my education in a foreign language at the age of 40, regained my two lost children, and have had two more children, been married for over 20 years, ran a successful business, survived a fire on a cruise boat as part of the crew, have a short story that will be published this fall and I am still writing my book. So many stories! Do you have a story about surrender you would like to share? Never surrender, or surrender, do you believe there is a right time for both?

Check out some of these amazing stories from the "Never Surrender" blogfest.



13 comments:

Jemi Fraser said...

That's an amazing story. I agree, we all make choices to move on, to not fight through at the time. But that isn't always a surrender - it's a choice that makes the most sense at the time. Sounds like you're in a good place with a good future ahead! Awesome! Thanks for sharing :)

Michael Di Gesu said...

Sister dear,

You continually amaze me! For one thing, your choices weren't surrender. YOU put others happiness before your own. YOU DID what was best for THEM! That to me is never surrendering your LOVE, passion, and above all, decency.

Your choices were extremely HARD ones, but you made the best ones for your family AND for yourself.

YOUR sacrifices are NEVER ENDING.... That is what I "spy" from this post.


Love,

Bro

RaShelle Workman said...

Thanks for sharing your story. When I read it, my final thought was, she isn't a quitter, she didn't surrender. She survived. And, persevered. Life is hard. The fact that you're still here, still fighting, proves, at least in my mind, you haven't surrendered.

Lynn Proctor said...

yes surrender can be sweet

michelle said...

Love your tenacity... you are a fighter, a survivor...

Christina Lee said...

wow, wow, WOW---and what a killer ending to your astonishing story! Thanks for sharing!!!

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

Sometimes it's not so much surrender as compromise, and that's not always a bad thing.

Susan Kane said...

Thanks for sharing yourself with all of us. Never give up--good to remember, better to do.

Heather M. Gardner said...

Wonderful post. Thanks for sharing with us!
Heather

Hart Johnson said...

You're so right--sometimes you are in a position to fight and sometimes you aren't. I love this blogfest--mine goes up tomorrow.

Heather Murphy said...

WOW, you've had a crazy, amazing life! I'm stopping by for the A-Z Roadtrip but I participated in this too

Elana Johnson said...

Sometimes there IS power in surrendering, that's true. Thanks for bringing that light to the blogfest!

Margo Berendsen said...

Wow!!! This was the most surprising of all the stories I've read (rather late) in this blogfest. "Sometimes surrender will still get us where we were meant to be" - there is some real truth there! Fighting is not always the best course.