When despair becomes desperation

She says...

Despair. Desperation. Do these words have the same meaning? Let's look at their definitions.

1. Despair - to lose all hope or confidence 
2. Desperation - to surrender to despair

Throughout the past year or so I have had many days where I have been very weary and full of despair. I never lost confidence in God but I lost most of my confidence in my husband, my marriage, and myself. Despair is a terrible place to be in physically and emotionally. I look back over my life and see when there have indeed been other times where I have felt despair for brief moments. But nothing like last year.

Despair is much different than feeling sad, depressed, grieving, hurting, or just upset. Despair is to feel like there is no hope in your situation. You continue to focus on all the reasons why there is no hope. It builds up until you can't see any way out. If we stay caught up in despair, we will eventually become depressed.

In my own life I seem to get closest to God, grow the deepest in Him, feel SO loved by Him, SO close to him when my despair becomes desperation. I know that might sound strange but it is so true for me and I think many others. When I am losing all hope that is when I fall to my knees in complete desperation. That is when I seek God the most.

This healing process is a long one as I am sure you can only imagine. I have had days where I think I am mentally scarred forever. That the old me will never return. I have thought to myself that my heart is scarred like my breasts and I will never ever be the same. I talk to God and tell him all of this. The other day as I was having my quiet time and having this discussion with Him and I saw in my mind in great big letters as if on a white wall that said "SURRENDER". I knew what God was asking of me. He wanted me to surrender ALL to him. My thoughts, my fears, my marriage, my concerns, my doubts, my husband, my children, my ALL.

It would take several posts to tell you the awesome things that has happened since I started to truly surrender ALL to Him. I thought it was pretty interesting when I looked up the definition of desperation and found that it said "to surrender" to despair. We are, or at least I know I am, SO guilty of thinking I can handle my life on my own. You know, like when we say "Well, all we can do now is pray". When that is what we should have started out with. I myself have said to God that if He could just take care of this "one little thing". Like I could actually handle the others myself.

God wants us to surrender. What if you were to surrender? What would that look like for you? Here is the definition of surrender.

SURRENDER - to yield to the power, control, or possession of another upon compulsion or demand 

I don't know if you know the old hymn "I surrender all" or not but it is truly a lovely song and I think you will feel the same if you hear it. I hope you will consider surrendering...yielding to God's power. Let him take care of you like he longs to do. I want to leave you with the lyrics to the song. 

I Surrender All

1. All to Jesus I surrender;
   All to Him I freely give;
   I will ever love and trust Him,
   In His presence daily live.
   • Refrain:
     I surrender all,
     I surrender all;
     All to Thee, my blessed Savior,
     I surrender all.
2. All to Jesus I surrender;
   Humbly at His feet I bow,
   Worldly pleasures all forsaken;
   Take me, Jesus, take me now.
3. All to Jesus I surrender;
   Make me, Savior, wholly Thine;
   Let me feel the Holy Spirit,
   Truly know that Thou art mine.
4. All to Jesus I surrender;
   Lord, I give myself to Thee;
   Fill me with Thy love and power;
   Let Thy blessing fall on me.
5. All to Jesus I surrender;
   Now I feel the sacred flame.
   Oh, the joy of full salvation!
   Glory, glory, to His Name!