Surrender

There are moments in a life when even breathing feels like an act of rebellion. Years ago, I found myself in such a place—tethered to a life I no longer recognized, too frightened to leave it, too exhausted to stay. I was living in a house that no longer felt like home, surrounded by the echoes of choices made in faith but carried now as burdens. Somewhere along the way, I convinced myself that this suffering was holy—that I was proving my loyalty to God by staying small, silent, and steadfast.

So I did what many do when hope grows thin: I lay down my fight. Pulled the covers over my head and called it surrender. My children were young; I fed them, dressed them, smiled when I could. But inside, I had gone to sleep.

Then, one evening, a friend invited me to a small spiritual circle. It was nothing remarkable—some candles, soft music, people speaking kindly about the light within us all. At the end, we drew angel cards—little bits of cardboard with single words on them, meant to serve as reminders or omens. I reached into the pile and drew one. It said, simply: Surrender.

I almost laughed out loud. “I am surrendering,” I thought. “To my fate, my sadness, my cross.” I took the card home, tossed it into my junk drawer, and forgot about it.

But the next week, I went back. And once again, when my hand reached into that pile—there it was. Surrender. The same word. I took it as a cosmic joke. “What more can I possibly give up?” I muttered. I tucked that card into my purse, and yet somehow, it never stayed put. Over the next months, it slipped into sight again and again—falling from shelves, sliding out of books, landing at my feet like a small messenger that refused to be ignored.

It took me a long time to understand that what I had called surrender was closer to resignation. Giving up on joy is not the same as yielding to grace. One closes the door; the other opens it. Real surrender, I came to learn, is not a laying down but a lifting up. It’s the unclenching of the hand that has been gripping the steering wheel too tightly, the whispered trust that something wiser might know the road better than I do. It’s rising from the bed of despair, gathering your children’s hands in your own, and stepping—shaking, perhaps, but still stepping—into the unknown.

When I finally did that, the world met me halfway. It wasn’t easy. It never is. But I began to see that what I thought was punishment had been preparation. That the breaking open of my old life was the only way something new could grow.

Years have passed since then, but that little card still finds me. I’ll open a drawer and there it will be—creased, faded, insistent. Surrender.

Now I understand. It means to stop dragging the cross you were never meant to bear. To let go of the story that pain is proof of love. To trust that life, in its quiet mercy, has always been conspiring to carry you toward something larger, kinder, and infinitely more whole.

Perhaps it’s the same for you. Maybe there’s something you’ve been gripping—some idea of who you should be, or who you must please, or what it means to be strong. Maybe it’s time to loosen your hold, to open your hands, and see what wants to be placed in them. Because sometimes, surrender isn’t the end of the fight.

It’s the beginning of the miracle.

Hari Om Tat Sat