On Surrender (for women) [Guest Post]

One of my clients, a wonderful young lady wrote the fascinating post below. Please go see her post directly for more.

For women, attempting to take a masculine role and seeking control over others is counter productive to finding love, a husband and happiness.

Each of the women mentioned below made a choice, to surrender to the right masculine force. That’s the key, choosing WHOs lead they will follow and then surrendering to that lead. For single women this may be as simple as surrendering to the dating process and masculinity itself.

Noah J Revoy

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On Surrender

What did Mary ever do? “Be it unto me according to thy will”, she prayed to God. She surrendered her body to the divine plan. She surrendered her son to the cross. She believed in the goodness of God and had faith in his plan. 

No crossing of a red sea. No calling down fire from the sky or the slaying of philistines. Not a mountain top experience to be seen. Simply a letting go of control.

As if we could miss the point, two other fleshed out female characters, Mary and Martha, have a really revealing conversation with Christ where this same theme is spelled out in case we were too hard headed to get it:

Martha, busy and burdened: LORD! Do you not care that my sister left me to serve alone! Tell her to help me!

Christ: Martha, Martha. You are careful and troubled about many things. But only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen the better part, and that won’t be taken away.

Martha is running around getting stuff done while Mary sits at Christ’s feet soaking in his presence. Here, she is surrendered and open to what can be provided for her (the presence of Christ) while her sister is focusing on a check list of tasks. I love this because it so clearly demonstrates the importance of open surrender to what is being GIVEN to you, not what you can DO.

As a woman, I was always disappointed there weren’t better examples of femininity in the Bible. That’s because I was looking for action oriented characters (masculine), not for the clear example of acceptance and openness that the Bible is filled with. 

Rachel and Leah are two women taking action, RESISTING, demonstrating control and competitiveness in Genesis. Both are deeply unhappy and for different reasons. Rachel is desperate for a baby, while Leah is desperate for love.

Sound familiar? Ah, the eternal female struggle. Every time Leah has a son, she says to herself, now my husband will love me. And yet he fails to conform to her plan. She even goes to the length of giving her maid to Jacob to impregnate to out compete her sister through fertility. Finally, when she births her sixth and final son, she says, Now I will praise the Lord. No longer fighting or trying to earn his love. She finds surrender.

Rachel tells her husband, give me children lest I die. To which he replies, am I God? An excellent question! She trades sex with Jacob for a fertility enhancing root, the mandrake. She gives her maid for Jacob to impregnate to feel like she has a child through the maid. And when God finally does allow her to have children, she soon after dies in childbirth. So much for controlling the narrative! 

Earning men’s love, or controlling our fertility, or doing tons of tasks, are clearly shown to be counter to feminine archetypes of the Bible, which show women leaning back, believing, and accepting. Whenever a woman is doing something off, it’s always around seeking to control her circumstances. When a woman is doing something right, she’s surrendering. Hannah surrendered her son to God and was blessed with many children in return, after years of agonizing over her infertility.

“Be it unto my according to thy will” is the prayer of my heart today, and I hope you too can find peace and hope therein. 

Much love to you ladies. ✨