I Surrender All

All to Jesus, I surrender;
All to Him I freely give;
I will ever love and trust Him,
In His presence daily live.

I surrender all, I surrender all,
All to Thee, my blessed Savior,
I surrender all.

All to Jesus I surrender;
Humbly at His feet I bow,
Worldly pleasures all forsaken;
Take me, Jesus, take me now.

All to Jesus, I surrender;
Make me, Savior, wholly Thine;
Let me feel the Holy Spirit,
Truly know that Thou art mine.

All to Jesus, I surrender;
Lord, I give myself to Thee;
Fill me with Thy love and power;
Let Thy blessing fall on me.

All to Jesus I surrender;
Now I feel the sacred flame.
O the joy of full salvation!
Glory, glory, to His Name!


I went to a Baptist School while I was growing up. I went to church regularly (usually 3-4 times a week)—add chapel once a week and Bible class everyday. I knew all the words I was supposed to say. I can talk "Bible" with anyone. I have sent Jehovah Witnesses running from my door and they stopped coming back. Not because I was mean to them but because I had been taught to argue what I "believe."

Here is the problem. Was I taught, in all of that, what I believe or was I just spouting back what I was taught? I am in that battle with myself spiritually right now.

Many of you know that I have been struggling with some pretty severe health issues—health issues that can cause me to lose my life. I don't normally list them off but for today I will. I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), Postpartem Cardiomyopathy or PPCM (fancy words for Congestive heart failure), Fibromyalgia, and now they believe that I have Autoimmune Neutropenia (my body is attacking itself) which means I have no resistance to germs. Currently, I have Pneumonia, again.

Why am I telling you all of this? What does it have to do with you? It probably doesn't and I had no intention of blogging any of this but for some reason I really feel like God is asking me to share this today. That leads me to believe someone needs to hear it.

Last night, as I lay in bed, struggling to breathe and not able to fall asleep, I put my ear buds in and turned on some instrumental hymn music. I like hymns because even though it is instrumental, I find it interesting that I can still sing all the words in my head. Attending churches where we sing praise choruses instead of hymns made me think I would have forgotten them but I haven't. Last night was interesting, though. As I lay there, I was just beginning to doze off when I found myself singing (in my head) with one of the songs. At first I was beginning to get irritated because I had almost been asleep. Then I realized what the song was I was singing—I Surrender All. I had pretty much forgotten that song. We usually only sang it at the end of services when the alter call was given. It wasn't sung that much, so why can I still sing every word of every verse?

All To Jesus I Surrender; All to Him I freely give. I realized last night, I don't just have to give Him the good stuff. I can give Him the health issues, too. I don't have to feel bad that I am coming to Him, broken in body and in spirit. He understands.

I will ever love and trust Him, In His presence daily live. I know that I love Him and I know that He loves me, but when you are in poor health and are not able to do the things you want to do, you feel less that complete. I hate that my husband has to do things for me. It makes me crazy that I can't do all that I want with Stephen. Jesus doesn't care what I can or can't do right now. He knows where I am and I can stay in His presence and He doesn't measure me based on that.

All To Jesus, I surrender. Humbly at His feet I bow. Worldly pleasures all forsake, Take me Jesus take me now. All of you know, I LOVE doing theater - I can't do it now. I love shopping—can't go to the stores. I love being with people but I can't go out and no one really comes here. I love crafting but most of it is packed up to move and I can't get to it. This has given me a lot of time to think, to pray, to read scripture and journal—basically, to get to know Jesus, where I am, not where I was taught to be.

All to Jesus I Surrender, Make me Savior Wholly Thine. Let me feel thy Holy Spirit, Truly know that Thou are mine. My prayer today and for the future is this: "Lord, make me yours and help me to know that not only am I yours but that You are MY God, not just the God of my Bible teachers and preachers and youth pastors, but you are also My God. I can love you and know that you love me. It is a sweet place to rest. Especially when I hurt and can't breathe and am frightened.

All to Jesus, I surrender; Lord, I give myself to Thee; Fill me with Thy love and power; Let Thy blessing fall on me. Jesus knows I am broken. He knows that spiritually, physically and sometimes emotionally I am not complete. I am not perfect. He still loves me and if I trust Him, He will fill me with His love and power, and with that, no matter how broken I am, I can't lose. That is all I need to wake up in the morning.

All to Jesus I surrender; Now I feel the sacred flame. O the joy of full salvation! Glory, glory, to His Name! What else is there?

I know that I am not perfect and that I have a long way to go to fully comprehend God's love, mercy, power, faithfulness, righteousness, and so many other things. The one thing I am learning to understand is His love. He is carrying me through this.

I can do more than thank Him and often that doesn't feel like enough. All He requires is my love and my willingness to serve Him. Does it mean that tomorrow I will be healed? Probably not. It would be great, and I would take it, but I think right now, I am where I am so that I can learn to rest in His grace. While it is scary to not be able to breathe, to not sleep, to hurt all the time, I have to rest in His mercy because there is nothing else I can do.