Surrender

I've got my browser open where I can hear the music on my home page and write my post for today.This play list contains songs from my youth. I love John Denver and particularly that first song. I first heard Sweet Surrender in probably 1975 and I have never forgotten it. I had it on a 45 rpm record and played it over and over. For some reason this is a song that simply speaks to my heart. Denver was like that, wasn't he? I like a lot of his songs but this one song has stuck with me.

Surrender is something we just can't get our heads around. We spend our lives fighting to survive, clutching and clinging to everything we come in contact with. I remember someone pointing out that a baby comes into the world with his tiny fists clenched but a man dies with his hands opened. The infant begins life clinging and clutching at life but at death, man realizes there is nothing left to cling to or grasp and all that he held must now be relinquished. It is as if he has learned too late that surrender is the goal.

I once told of the time I had surgery and they gave me the anesthesia to put me to sleep. I fought that stuff so hard. I hate to be knocked out. I remember the anesthesiologist telling me that I had to stop fighting and go to sleep. I couldn't talk but mentally, I prayed and told God that I was surrendering to him and when I let go it was like falling backward into nothing. Frightening and amazing at the same time.

Remember when you were a kid and you played the game where you and a friend took turns falling backward into the others arms? What, you didn't play that? I did. You had to stand straight and fall straight back. And there were only certain friends that you could do that with and you knew who they were!

Surrender.

What a strange concept. To give oneself up into the power of another. To stop struggling against the tide and allow yourself to be carried away. To float on top of your troubles and let them pass beneath you.

Surrender .... Sweet Surrender, live without care

Wow.