It's not easy for a control freak like me to surrender- to willingly and intentionally set aside MY will for the often unknown and seemingly nebulous petition, "THY will be done," that we pray in the prayer Jesus taught us to pray. 

For much of my childhood I was subject to the caprices of others' wills as well as being subject to the caprices of fragile health.   For many years of my life- especially after a bout of rheumatic fever- I was almost living in doctors' offices and emergency rooms.  Both at home and school I was routinely hammered into submission- older siblings as well as kids on the playground tend to be cruel to kids who are weak, awkward and sickly.   Being extremely nearsighted as well as being born with gross motor deficits, and small for my age, I was an easy target.  Yet even in my silent endurance of whatever beatings were doled out my submission was merely damage control, not a voluntary deference. I shut up and took it because it wasn't as much sport for my attackers to keep beating someone who could not fight back.  I vowed revenge. Someday.

As I got older and worked my way through high school and college I was determined to leave the scared, awkward little girl with the ill-fitting hand me downs and thick glasses that got beaten up by my sisters at home daily, and thrown in the bushes at school whenever the principal turned her back, behind forever.  It was going to be full speed ahead, take no guff from anyone, MY will be done, no matter who stood in the way or what damage I left in my wake.

That mindset won me a strained sort of success.  Professionally it earned me accolades and a "get-it-done" reputation.  As a result of my willingness to work long hours, and to be ruthless in both business and personal relationships I ended up in highly stressful jobs that required both technical knowledge as well as the ability to coerce and manipulate people.  

For many years of my life this was how I lived.  MY will be done.  

Even as my first marriage failed, I kept right on going up in flames.  I didn't set foot in a church or even gave God a thought for over seven years.  I drank too much, I chain smoked.  I indulged in shameless behavior for professional gain.  I remarried unwisely. I worked so many hours that I missed much of my only child's developing years and left much of his care to paid caretakers and his grandparents. I did all of this to prove I wasn't the fragile little freaky geek everyone loved to beat up, but in my mind that was my greatest fear- that I would be found out as the pathetic loser everyone had written me off as being so many years ago.  I had to maintain the invincible and impeccably coiffed facade no matter the cost.

Then my health failed- in a most visible way.

I had bleeds in the scleras (white parts) of both eyes from wildly uncontrolled blood pressure.  Multiple medications did no good, and it would not come down.  I suffered from PTSD and panic attacks.  I was 30 years old.  My family doctor sat me down and said, "If you don't dramatically change your job, outlook and lifestyle, you won't live to see 35."  

That admonition was the beginning of surrender- not forced compliance but a realization that MY will wasn't working, and if I wanted a chance at life I would have to trust that the "THY will" I was taught to pray for from memory was going to be more effective.

Martin Luther said, "Put on Baptism as daily wear."  For me this means drown "MY will" and trust in "THY will," even though it is the hardest prayer for a control freak to pray from the heart.

In Christ we are safe to be vulnerable.  More importantly in Him we are loved and accepted and made whole no matter what our flaws.