Sharing My Journey
Giving away the gift of my story:
Surrender. I’m going to end with surrender. It’s the only ending that makes sense for me. It has been my key to health and freedom. It has been my key to life and love. It has become my key to live life with the ease and delight of being God’s child once again. It is my chance for tastes of life without fear. Surrender is giving Jesus my life. I tell Him that He can have it all.
Dear sweet Jesus,
I give it all to You, Lord, and I trust You with it all. I give You my guilt, my perfectionism, my mistakes and failings, my codependency, my anger, my rage, hatred and my desire to be as perfect as You. Take my ways of seeing the world: my righteousness, my self centeredness and the distance I try to put between myself and others. I give You my kids, my husband, my marriage, my family, my body, my sickness, my healing, my perceptions, my hopes and my dreams. I accept Your truth and Your answers. I take Your plans and Your power. I invite You to change all of me. I surrender. You can have it all.
Take my life,
Alisa
It’s the ultimate irony; in order to truly enjoy life we have to surrender it. We have to see it’s not ours for the keeping. We understand that nothing is ours to keep, anyway, unless we want to die a slave. I’d rather submit it all and live. That’s what I’m going to try to do for the rest of my journey. In fact, I’ve decided what will fill my next canvas. It’s going to hold all the stuff I’m going to surrender. It’s going to be filled with all the things I’m going to give away. My new canvas is going to resonate with life.
Surrender, for me, meant letting Jesus direct my story. When I wrote my spiritual autobiography, Dancing in the Doghouse, I had to let God be in control of some stuff. It was stuff that I didn't want to let go of. I knew though, deep down inside, that my spiritual story wouldn't really encourage people if it wasn't honest, open and a good bit risky. This meant opening me up to the scrutiny of others and trusting God with the outcome. As I began sharing my spiritual memoir I was terrified: terrified of the scrutiny, terrified of the powerlessness and terrified to let Jesus direct me. I had to surrender it all and trust that God had his reasons for doing things as He saw fit. Dancing in the Doghouse was my way of giving it all over to God and believing that He would take good care of the gift of my story.

Have It All
Age 39