Now that I have opened my hands, surrendered, and allowed God to remove what doesn’t belong does not mean that everything is suddenly all good. I constantly find myself trying to pick things back up and move out of alignment because, for so much of my life, that has been my rhythm. But in this season, I want to do something different. I want to be obedient. I want to move according to God’s plan and not my own.

The Word tells us not to conform to the patterns we have known, but to “be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). I’m learning that surrendering something once doesn’t automatically erase the patterns I built while carrying it. My mind has to be renewed, and for me, that means sitting every single day with the One I surrendered it all to and submitting what is on my heart to Him in prayer.

Sometimes that prayer is:

Lord, what should I cook for dinner that actually fits today’s schedule?

Sometimes it is:

Show me how to be more compassionate with my Mom and my daughter because I’m running on minimal sleep.

And sometimes it is:

Lord, help me prioritize this day. Don’t allow the decisions I make concerning myself, my family, my business, my ministry, or my calendar to create overwhelm, confusion, anxiety, fear, unrest, or strife that stalls my momentum and keeps me from moving faithfully through this day.

This time with God isn’t new for me. It’s a strategic rhythm I practiced for many years. But when chaos hit, life continued to go hard, and I became more and more weary. The rhythms I had established became displaced. They were forgotten. Life consumed me. Overwhelm consumed me. And eventually, the chaos drowned out the natural rhythms that had once helped keep me grounded.

But I never stopped talking to God. I prayed. I desperately sought His face. I chased after Him because I needed deliverance from the weight of everything I was carrying. and it wasn’t that God wasn’t speaking. It was that,

“I could no longer hear Him.”

The chaos became so loud and distracting that I began following that sound more than God’s voice. Somewhere along the way, I got lost. I got lost in the enemy’s lies about who I was and what my purpose was. I got lost in the humdrum of daily life and became what I thought everybody needed me to be - Perfect Brandy.

But I was numb and disconnected from the real me. I performed for the outside world while I was falling apart on the inside, and nobody knew. I became very good at masking what was actually happening while maintaining the appearance of a well-put-together life. Until the weight became too much to bear. I had to yield all. Surrender all.

I remember the evening I finally admitted that I couldn’t hold everything together anymore. I told my husband I was going to quit EVERYTHING—and I meant everything. I quit my good-paying job. I stepped away from my real estate business, and I did it without a Plan B. All I knew, was that my life was hanging in the balance and I had to do something to get ME back.

I was lost. I was on the verge of a complete breakdown. And I finally realized:

“I was the cost that needed to be counted.”

Jesus asks a sobering question in Luke 14:28: “Which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost?” For years, I had counted the cost of building businesses, serving people, caring for family, meeting expectations, and keeping everything moving. I had not counted what carrying all of it was costing me. Surrender became a journey. I would say it took about eighteen months before I really began finding my joy again. But let me tell you something,

“Surrender is not a one-time event.”

It is a journey I’m still walking, and what I’m learning now is that the way I faithfully live and steward what God says belongs to me is not by taking everything back into my own hands. I surrender it to Him. Again. And again. And again. Then I listen, and when He speaks, I take the next faithful step He instructs me to take.

Maybe that is what establishing a new rhythm really looks like. Not building a life so perfectly structured that I never lose my way again. But establishing rhythms that continually help me return to God when I do.

~Brandy Tennille