I Surrender All

Sunday morning at church, our Pastor Dan, made a few comments during his sermon that really stuck out in my mind. The first one: Dan said "God is ALWAYS on time." The second: Dan was talking about reading the Bible. And he said that there will always be a part of the Bible that speaks to you, God speaking to you, in ways that you may have never noticed before.

God has a way of speaking to me through music. Our small group did a Bible Study not too long ago that was about learning to listen for when God is speaking to you. Mine is music. EVERY time i've seriously questioned something, there's been a song that I've clung on to.

As most of you have figured out by now, music and photography are my two releases from the world. Last week, I needed to escape from the real world - it had not been a great start to the week... at all.

Tuesday while I was at work, I was listening to Pandora, and I had it on a station that was all piano music. It was helping me keep calm and keep going at a steady pace to get my ad copy done. I had been praying all day Tuesday that God would just help me get through the week, if I could just make it to the weekend. I didn't know how much more I could take.

After I had said my last prayer, a song came on Pandora that stopped me from writing and I had to look up. Now, because it was the piano station, there were no words, just the music of the piano. I kept thinking to myself, I know what song this is, I know what song this is. And then the chorus started playing. I knew it! It was a piano version of "I Surrender All." Oh my! Here's the chorus for those of you who don't know it:

I surrender all, I surrender all
All to Thee my blessed Savior
I surrender all

God was telling me to give it all to him when that song came on. Surrender all my worries, troubles, problems, MYSELF to him. I'll be honest. I was taken back a bit. I stopped what I was doing, said a short prayer, and then started working again.

Later on Tuesday night after work and after some friends of Mike and I's had left, I was working on some pictures from the two shoots we did that previous weekend and I was listening to iTunes. I had one of Mike's playlists playing and one of Big Daddy Weave's songs (that i've heard too many times to count) started playing. I'd never paid so much attention to the song as I did Tuesday night. You can hear it here, or read the lyrics below:

Sometimes my life just don't make sense at all
When the mountain looks so big
And my faith just seems so small

So hold me Jesus, 'cause I'm shakin' like a leaf
You have been King of my Glory
Won't you be my Prince of Peace

When I wake up in the night I feel the dark
It's so hot inside my soul
I swear there must be blisters on my heart

So hold me Jesus, 'cause I'm shakin' like a leaf
You have been King of my Glory
Won't you be my Prince of Peace

Surrender don't come natural to me
I'd rather fight you for something I don't really want
Than to take what you give that I need
And I've beat my head against so many walls
I'm falling down, falling on my knees
God please

And the Salvation Army band is playing this hymn
And your grace rings out so deep
It makes my resistance seem so thin

So hold me Jesus, 'cause I'm shakin' like a leaf
You have been King of my Glory
Won't you be my Prince of Peace

Now there's a part in the song, where the lyrics say "And the Salvation Army band is playing this hymn..." and a violin plays the melody from "I Surrender All" and then at the end of the song, there's a child that sings "I Surrender All, I Surrender All..."

I started to cry. Instead of "Are you there God, it's me... Bethany" I was saying, "OK God! I'm listening. I'm supposed to surrender it all to you." The lyrics were dead on as to what I was thinking. And God was speaking to me. I said a pretty long prayer that night. I gave my worries of the day, the week, the month (the past few months...) to God.

God was on time Tuesday. He's ALWAYS on time.