On Surrender

Sometimes I have no solutions. Wherever I turn, answers are not given, and frustration and despair scream within me. When I was younger, those moments were full of suffering; fear colored my soul, and the void threatened to devour all that I was. But over the years, and in countless encounters with that same threatening void, I learned again and again to surrender. The key lies in love.

When I suffered enough, I surrendered to the pain and turned, like a child returning home, toward that same threatening void. The monster I feared appeared before me as a loving mother, the womb of creation from which the entire world emerged. I fell to my knees in loving surrender and complete faith in her love for me. In her grace, she peeled away layer after layer of me until nothing remained to cling to. All that remained within the void was love, which shattered every imaginary separation between me and my holy mother.

From the source of our unity came salvation: answers and guidance, inspiration and healing. Until my problems, which had taken over every good part of me, dissolved into nothingness before the power of love. Yet human nature is in motion; the waves of life continue in their passion to unite with the shore, and I find myself again and again returning to that same point where I have no answers, where despair and fear flood me with cries.

This low point no longer frightens me. I have learned to be present with myself in compassion, to love myself in moments of despair with faith and remembrance, knowing that both the low tide and the rising wave that follows are part of the same sea. This is my great and holy mother, from whom everything comes, and to whom she takes everything back.

Sometimes, in special moments, she shows me God's sense of humor: that life is one great act of love between her and me, that she is within me and I am within her. And in the moment I awaken to see her in everything, she blesses me with her great grace: to be free and happy upon the earth, to rest in peace within my life, within her womb. And upon my lips, always in gratitude: Hallelujah.