Surrender

It was September of 2000 and had been about a month since our family first began to attend church.  Each Sunday we brought along a chubby adorable 3yr old toddler, a delicate shy 4yr old princess and a fiesty, spunky, chatter box of a 9yr old.  Our family time was increasing and Sundays were indeed turning out to be good days.  In fact, they were so good that we even attended church on Wednesday.  Granted, there was food involved and that meant no cooking for me, so it really wasn't a hard sell. It even turned out that it would be a Wednesday night sitting around your typical fellowship hall table having dinner that would soon change our lives.

My husband, who is quite the entertainer and has a larger than life personality has always been an actor and singer.  He's actually quite amazing. For months leading up to our church attendance I had begun to feel bad because my husband had this great talent and was not able to use it.  My first thoughts were for him to look into community theatres or just find some form of an acting outlet.  This however required research and was long before the days of Google.  In other words, it didn't happen.

Now, going back to this one Wednesday night.

There we sat, enjoying our dinner and meeting new people.  The first man we met happened to be the music pastor, Jay. One of his first questions to my husband was asking him if he sang.  The answer was yes with an explanation of his theater degree in college.  One thing led to another and before we left that night my husband had the role of Maxwell, a lead character in a play called The Christmas Post.  This was a character Jay was originally playing but instead he turned it over to my husband.  

Weeks filled with practices rolled by.  No one even knew who we were and in fact, most thought Chris was a hired actor.  I, on the other hand, being totally talentless was quickly becoming known as Maxwell's wife, and honestly I was completely okay with that. As weeks went by and my husband got deeper and deeper into the role of his character he soon realized how similiar he and Maxwell were.  Not so much in personality but rather in their similar void of hope.  You see, Maxwell was the turn around character.  He was the man of no faith with only the world to blame for his struggles. He was a man who looked after himself, a man without God. A man that later entered into a relationship with the Lord. 

In the midst of the late night practices, my husband's silent struggle with his character and the nearing play, life was pressing in.  It was one evening as the cast was wrapping up and closing in their usual time of prayer that Jay, the music minister stopped mid sentence in the middle of his prayer.  He began to verbalize a new prayer, he shared a strong sense that there was someone in the room that needed to know God.  He spoke it openly and briefly and then went on to continue to pray.  Within a minute Jay was right back to that moment once again sharing a strong sense that there was someone there who really needed to know the Lord.  It was a sense that he was unable to let go of.  He finally closed and wrapped up the time of prayer announcing himself as being available in his office.  My husband mulled around waiting and watching for the man Jay was praying about to come forward, despite knowing that he, himself was the man.  Sure enough, one by one everyone left leaving only my husband.  The sureity of the calling could not have been more clear, and with that and tears in his eyes he walked into Jay's office and simply said, "It's me".

My precious husband came home that night and shared his heart with me.  He told me of his time of prayer with Jay as he was led to surrender his life to Christ.  Just like Maxwell, he was tired of the running and the searching for something more.  For once in his life, he found the answer, or moreso, the Answer found him. As he went on to share with me I could tell that there was nothing more he wanted than for me to have the same hope he now had.  Then, for the very first time as a couple, we prayed and I too surrendered my life to Christ.  

From that day on my husband has been an amazing spiritual leader.  His knowledge and wisdom is incredible.  His love for me and for the Lord is unwavering. I, on the other hand had a different journey. I clearly recall my prayer of surrender and faith being combined with a prayer of unsurity.  I wasn't sure that I would ever be able to love the Lord like I love my husband and because of that my prayer went something like this, "Lord, I will trust you but please don't dissapoint me".  Not the most Biblically aligned prayer, but it was genuine and it came from a very real place in my heart.  I was just so scared to trust anyone except for myself and my husband and I knew that I just couldn't handle any more disappointment.  Little did I know that that moment of surrender would mean that I was going to have to release my husband from being my savior in exchange for placing Jesus in that position.  The Lord was soon going to create in me a complete dependence upon Him.  The task I had to face was simply too big for mere man....even for my savior of a husband.