i wish i was six again.

Back to that whole 'surrender' thing.

A few years back, I used to play baseball. I wasn't queen of the game, but I was pretty good. I could hit it out of the field when the connection was right, caught my share of high flies and grounders, and even pitched a no-hitter [inning].

However, my team was a group of insecure girls, and not unlike the cliched mean girls of tv and movies, they had a victim...me. They wouldn't play catch with me to warm-up, they rolled their eyes and snarled when I got up to pitch, they insulted me [whispers only], wouldn't let me sit on the bench while we were @ bat...all kinds of good stuff like that. I stuck with it for about 5 years, but then I had to get out.

Why?!

Because at one year-end party, my youngest sister became their victim when they chased her out of the diamond with handfulls of rocks. I think I quit the next year actually, because after than incident, MAN did they ever suck up to me.

*sighs*

Surrender.

Right now that means for me, giving up ALL the baseball stories. It means forgiving those things, and leaving them forgiven. Not trying to dredge up old emotions to get sympathy, or just to tell a story. It means leaving that behind, and allowing the wounds to heal. In recent months, I've wondered if that could even mean friendship or at least a conversation with one of the girls.

It's by grace we have been saved through faith, not from ourselves. It's a gift, not by works, so that nobody can brag about it. I think it's by grace that I can write this, and begin to understand this kind of surrender. Begin to grasp how wide, how long, how deep the love of God. Deep enough to forgive. Deep enough to heal. Deep enough to allow me to love my enemies.

Crazy, right?

Well. That's surrender for now.