A constant theme on my mind lately has been "surrender". We are called to surrender every single part of our lives to God. Our problems, our plans, our hopes, our failures, our dreams. We must give it all to Him. This can be very hard because we have NO idea what He is going to do with it. We just have to trust that whatever happens is in our best interest. He wants us to trust Him with every fiber of our being. A line in the song "You Are" by Tenth Avenue North goes "I give You all of me for all You are; here I am, take me apart." We aren't just supposed to give the parts we want to Him; we are called to give ALL of ourselves. Pride. Hurt. Anger. Fear. Control (which I think is the hardest to give up). Even in our triumphs, we are to attribute them to His great mercy. Once we start to do this, we will feel so much more free and lighter, because He has exchanged His light burden for our heavy crosses. He offered graciously to carry them for us so we don't have to, ever. That's the beauty of God, and we have the choice of either carrying around all our burdens till we drop to the ground, deprived of all strength to continue, or freely giving it all up to Him to carry for us. And the best part of it all is this: He's already paid the price for us.