Beach Haikus, part 1

My fifteen year old daughter thinks it is lame that I write haikus.

She doesn't think everything I do is lame, which is a good thing I suppose, but apparently writing haikus is as great a faux pas as wearing knee socks

Knee socks I can understand, but what's so wrong about writing a haiku? Oh the mystery of the teenage mind.....

Anyhow, here's one of my recent haikus.


Crashing tidal waves

wash sand fleas out to sea in

quiet surrender.


Ok, so I'm clearly not the world's greatest haiku poet; but just take a moment and consider the theme of "quiet surrender".

Has there ever been a moment of quiet surrender in your life?

I'm not talking about the surrender of desperation. I'm talking about the quiet and purposeful yielding of one's inner self.

I don't do much quietly. I don't eat quietly. I don't cry quietly and if I am to believe my husband and children who claim I snore, I don't even sleep quietly!

Recently however, I experienced a moment of quiet surrender.

At long last, I have surrendered to the knowledge that I cannot continue living my life as I have been.

Don't get me wrong, I love my life. The problem is, I spend too much of my life doing and not enough time being. I need to take time to be alone with myself. I need to spend more mornings alone with Jesus. I need to fully experience the blessing of God's gift of Himself.

I cannot do this, if I am constantly doing for others.

I've made the decision to relinquish some of my service commitments. I will eliminate some, curtail others; but the point is for me to let go, if only for the time being, and surrender.

God is calling me to himself. I feel it. With every fiber of my being I feel it and I wish to surrender, to yield to Him.

The first step is to simplify my life and to make room for Him in a real way.

How often do any of us really make room for God in our lives?

I mean, have you ever really spent an hour alone with God?

Most people I know would go insane after five minutes and they are good, faithful Christian men and women!

Who knows? Maybe I will go insane myself? I'm certain that some of my friends and acquaintances will wonder if I have drifted into some peculiar insanity...but the decision has been made and my surrender will continue as a daily choosing.

This much I know...for the time being at least!