Should I Surrender to My Pain?

I’m always up for a challenge at the gym, but my trainer introduced me to a new exercise recently that brought me to my knees…literally. 

It’s called the “surrender” and involves dropping first to one knee and then down to the other before rising up again into a mini squat one leg at a time. Trust me, it’s a lot harder than it sounds. After about 3 surrenders, I was breathing hard, my quads were burning, and I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it to the end!

Sara Claudia doing mountain climbers outside.

A hard workout isn’t the only thing that can bring us to our knees, though. 

Life often throws obstacles, trials, and hardships our way that can have the same painful and exhausting impact. 

In 2015, when I lost my sight, I was faced with one of these situations. It was devastating, to say the least, and I felt completely burnt out by the loss, pain, and grief that I was facing. I didn’t really feel like I had been knocked down to my knees.

Rather, I felt like my legs had been completely swept out from underneath me. 

There, on the floor, however, I learned the importance of truly and completely surrendering so that we can rise again stronger than ever, one foot at a time.

 When we hear the word “surrender”, we often think of giving up, waving the white flag, and throwing in the towel. We associate it with gracefully bowing out and retreating away from our problems, but that is not what I’m talking about here. 

Surrendering in this sense means acknowledging your grief. 

It means recognizing that the pain you are experiencing is very real and allowing those feelings to come to the surface. We must combat the temptation we often have to push those feelings down and keep them hidden. This is so important in the healing process. 

You must feel before you can heal.

"You must feel before you can heal." - Sara Claudia Tillman

 I’m not very good at being vulnerable with myself or with others, so this was especially difficult for me after losing my sight. It took a lot of time for me to realize that crying, yelling, sobbing, or whatever you have to do at that moment doesn’t mean that you are weak, it just means that you are human. 

Even David in the Bible was tempted by this common tendency to retreat from our hardships. When he faced troubles, fear, and uncertainty, he wished for what most of us do when we face pain…a way out. 

“O, that I had wings like a dove; then I would fly away and rest! I would fly far away to the quiet of the wilderness. How quickly I would escape far from this wild storm of hatred.” (Psalms 55: 6-8, NLT) 

David realized, however, that there is a much better way to deal with our problems. 

We must face them and turn them over to the Lord.

This part of the “surrender” is even more important. After you acknowledge that pain, you have to give it over to Christ. You have to surrender it to Him. 

What does this mean? It means that we recognize that we cannot handle the situation we are faced with on our own. So, we hand it over to the Lord, trusting that His strength, grace, and power will walk us through whatever we are facing. 

David displays this kind of surrender and trust in Psalms 55 when he says, 

“But I will call on God, and the Lord will rescue me.” (Psalms 55:16, NLT)

When life brought me to my knees five years ago, God is the one who picked me up. 

It wasn’t my own strength or courage, support from a loved one, or knowledge from a doctor. 

It was God. 

But only after I gave that situation over to Him, and said, okay, you handle this, because it hurts too much, it’s too hard, and I cannot do it on my own.

He really is our one and only help.

 “Give your burdens to the Lord, and he will take care of you. He will not permit the godly to slip and fall.” (Psalms 55:22, NLT)

Sara Claudia standing while working out in a field.

Lastly, we stand. 

After letting ourselves grieve and receiving strength from the Lord, we find that we can begin moving forward. We become strong enough to pick ourselves up from the floor and decide not to let our pain keep us from living.

 This is a slow process, and often it is painful in itself.

But it is so vital.

 The “stand” after the surrender does not mean that your grief or hardships are completely gone. Far from it. It just means that, through accepting that pain and by leaning on Christ, you become strong enough to move forward and face life despite it. 

David knew this, too. He knew that his enemies would continue to cause strife and adversity for him. However, he also knew that God would continue to stand by his side as long as he kept calling upon Him.

“Morning, noon, and night I cry out in my distress, and the Lord hears my voice. He ransoms me and keeps me safe from the battle waged against me, though many still oppose me. God, who has ruled forever, will hear me and humble them…” (Psalms 55:17-19, NLT)

Now, I’ll have you know that I did, rather reluctantly make it through that first set of surrenders that day at the gym.

Since then, I have endured the exercise many more times, and each time I surrender and rise again, one leg at a time, I notice myself getting a little bit stronger. My quads don’t burn as much, it takes more reps for me to get tired, and the stand after the surrender gets a bit easier. 

This is exactly what can happen if we surrender, then stand, when we face trials in our lives. When you encounter a loss, obstacle, or hardship, the feelings of pain never completely disappear. 

However, we can become stronger, one small step at a time, as we fall, acknowledge the pain, give it to God, and trust Him to help us rise again.