Struggles In Surrender: A Glimpse Into My Ongoing Journey

Today's post is a little different from my typical Woman In The Word content. My blog is centered on two things: my journey through God's Word and my journey as a woman finding her way home to God. Today's post is more personal, an inside look into my journey, my struggles, the spiritual attacks I've been facing, and the shame I still battle. This post is more for me than for you, but I hope by sharing my story, you'll feel comforted in knowing you're not alone. I'm not perfect. I'm in the trenches of surrender. Wherever you are, I'm right there with you. Let's do this together.

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This past week has been hard. As much as I've engrossed myself in God's Word, embedded His truths in me, and rebuked the lies the devil has poured into me, I could only hold my ground for so long before the hopelessness tried to take root again. But what happened this week is so much bigger than the past seven days, so I'm going to back up to the beginning.

My struggles began in childhood, in a home that was God-fearing but not God-centered, with parents who loved me, but were unhealed and, at times, emotionally abusive. I was often met with criticism, isolation, and physical punishment instead of love, mercy, grace, and correction rooted in kindness rather than control. I bring all of this up now not to bash my parents, who I love, but to reveal how my strict, authoritarian, emotionally neglectful childhood is still impacting my relationship with the Lord today.

There was a hole in my heart, a void I was seeking to fill once I left home. I wanted love, but I wasn't equipped to choose someone who could love me. I wasn't equipped, not only because of the issues I'd faced with my parents, but because I'd never felt God's love for me. I wasn't taught how to feel loved by Him, how to have relationship with Him. I was taught to fear Him, much like I was taught to fear my parents.

The fear, guilt, and shame surrounding my upbringing, both in the church and outside of it, is what led me to separate from the church, and seek love from unreliable, ill-equipped sources rather than from God. Because, to me, God did not represent love or kindness. God represented fear, shame, guilt, and control--all the things I was trying to escape.

For many years, I sought love more than I sought God. In fact, there were many years that I wasn't seeking God at all. Though, deep down, I always knew I'd find my way back to Him. I always knew I wanted a relationship with Him. I always knew that I wanted to raise my kids to know Him. I wanted to be that family in church. I wanted to have a happy marriage, a Godly marriage, even though I didn't know how to get there. I could see the vision, but not the path. I wanted something I wasn't equipped to have.

My relationships never began with God, but I always tried to bring God into them after the fact, which didn't work. There was this tug-of-war between who I was and who I wanted to be, between who they were and who I wanted them to be. 1 Corinthians 13, the Love Chapter, has been my standard for loving since I was a child, but it wasn't the standard for those who I wanted to love me. So, I ended up giving way too much to people who couldn't reciprocate the depth of my love. This led to more hurt, abandonment, and broken boundaries in dating. It's like my romantic relationships were replays of the toxic patterns of my childhood.

Through therapy, healthy boundaries with my family, trial-and-error in dating, spending time in God's Word, and finally surrendering to His ways, I have healed so many of my old wounds and let go of unhealthy patterns and practices. I still desire love, but I'm not desperatly chasing it. I understand that not everyone has the same definition of love as I do, and it will be a rare man who is equipped to be my husband. I understand that Godly boundaries in dating are there to protect me, and I'm not willing to break those boundaries or my relationship with the Lord to find comfort in a man or marriage. I also realize that marriage / being chosen by a man isn't going to heal me the way I once thought it would. Only God can heal me. Only God can give me the true unconditional love I've been yearning for my entire life. But...

This past week has shown me parts of me are still unhealed. There are wounds that are so deeply buried inside me, I didn't realize they were there.

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Baptism of Surrender

On Wednesday, November 5, 2025, I was baptized for the second time. After seeking the Lord without ceasing for a year and a half, reading His Word consistently, finding my church home, feeling His presence in my life, finding comfort in Him, and surrendering to His ways, I decided to honor my journey and Him with a public profession of not just faith but surrender.

I was eight-years-old when I was first baptized and it was a baptism of faith. I believed in God, our Father in Heaven, and that He sent His Son, Jesus, to die for our sins. I believed. I had faith in His existence. But I hadn't yet faced temptation. I hadn't been tested and tried. I hadn't faced the challenges of life that would require me to make a choice to either follow Him or abandon Him for the ways of the world. I spent most of my twenties being more a friend to the world than a friend to God, despite the emotional tug-of-war I always felt.

Our pastor described baptism as a symbol of death and resurrection. The water doesn't represent cleansing. The blood of Jesus Christ is what cleanses you. The water submersion symbolizes being buried, putting to death your old life, your old ways, and being born again. That exact reason is why I wanted to get baptized again. I'd felt like I'd already put my old ways to death and I wanted to seal my rebirth with a public profession of surrender.

Anticipating my baptism caused the old wounds of my childhood and the voice of the devil to resurface. Leading up to it, I thought to myself: Okay, this is it. You can never sin again or else this is useless. Are you really ready for it? Are you really ready to never sin again? Deep down, I knew these thoughts were not from God and I didn't let them stop me from getting baptized. But...the pressure to be perfect was weighing on me. And while the baptism was beautiful and exciting, the very next day, I felt heavy--heavy with the pressure to be perfect, heavy with thoughts of that one secret sin that held me in shame for so long, heavy with the hopelessness I thought I'd let go of.

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Spiritual Attacks In Surrender

My greatest struggle in life has been my unmet desire to be loved. This is the area the devil has attacked me the most. First, by creating an environment where healthy love was not given, hardwiring my brain for conditional or performance-based love. Then, by presenting counterfeits that led to broken boundaries, heartbreak, perverted sexual desires, and shame. And, in my current single season, the devil's greatest weapon of choice has been hopelessness stemming from lies.

The lies tell me this season will never end. I can't trust God to give me a husband; I have to take matters into my own hands. I can't trust God with my desires. God is punishing me because of my past. What is the point in trying to reclaim my purity if I'm never going to get married? You're wrong for desiring love. Your desire for marriage is an idol. Every time you fail, you're delaying your blessing. You can't get married until you're perfect.

I could go on and on. Even writing those statements feels heavy. I still carry the weight of them even though I know the scriptures that defeat every lie. Those lies took hold of me in the days following my baptism. Isn't it just like the devil to try to ruin a good thing?

I know I can trust God with my desires. I know God wants good things for me, including marriage. I know God doesn't expect me to be perfect. If it were possible for humans to be perfect, He wouldn't have sent His Son to die for us. I know it's impossible for me to never sin again, even though I don't want to sin. I know that this season of singleness, loneliness, and suppression will end, even when it feels like it won't.

As my old thoughts and feelings arose, I knew the devil was trying to drive a wedge between me and God. Still, it didn't stop me from getting angry at God, from crying out to Him in despair, from feeling like my prayers were going unanswered. It didn't stop the mistrust from rising again. The truth of God's Word didn't spare me from that moment of heartache and hopelessness, even though it has ultimately saved me from it.

Surrendering to the Lord presents a new kind of pressure even though surrendering to Him is a kind of freedom unlike any other. We surrender to Him because we love Him and we accept His love for us. We acknowledge His ways are better. They protect us from harm. His Spirit frees us from the bondage of sin and the promise of death. And through Jesus Christ, we are granted an unbreakable relationship with the Father in Heaven, which is where ultimate fulfillment lies. But... Jesus tells us that following Him will not come without opposition. And mankind's greatest opposition is and has always been Satan.

Satan does not hesitate to attack when you are making spiritual leaps. Our sermon on Sunday actually addressed this very thing. My pastor said, "the enemy challenges the seed the second it is planted."

Imagine you've planted a garden, but when your plants don't sprout the very next day, you think the seed is worthless and you dig it up from the soil. Well, now that the seed has been removed, it won't grow into anything. Whereas, if you'd left it in the soil--been patient and nurtured it--it would eventually produce a harvest.

When we're planting seeds of hope and truth in our heart through God's Word, Satan comes running to rip those seeds from the soil of our heart before they can be fully implanted, before they become stable inside us. That's exactly what he tried to do to me.

As much time as I spend in my Bible, I'm still new to the study of God's Word. My relationship with the Lord, my trust in Him, and my surrender to Him is all still new. Satan is trying to get me to break up with God before my faith has a chance to become stronger. And while Satan did not win and will not win, he did get to me, and that revealed the wounds I still need to heal.

Even though I have surrendered my life and my desires to the Lord, I am still struggling to accept love I don't have to earn. I am struggling to trust God with my future and with resting in His faithfulness and goodness. I am still struggling to have grace for myself and accept God's mercy. I am struggling with the pressure to be perfect, with the pressure of purity. I am struggling with shame in failure. I am struggling with guarding my mind and heart against the devil's lies. I am struggling with holy femininity, with feeling like a woman who is fully alive while single and abstaining from all sexual acts.

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(Woman) In The Word

It is hard being a woman. And while I know men have their own challenges, I can only speak from my experiences. I am a woman seeking God's presence more than anything else, and yet, I am still a woman. I still have urges and desires, desires not only for love, but for connection, touch, sex. And, as a woman trying to reclaim her purity, I've felt like I have to abandon my womanhood just to do that.

I literally cried out to God in anger, in despair, saying, "What is the point of me being here? What is the point of me being a woman? What is the point of me having this body if I'm not allowed to use it, explore it, feel at home in it?"

It feels like I have this body that I'm not allowed to touch. I have to wait for my husband to tell me it's okay, and that's wrong on many levels. Not to mention, that ideology only makes me crave marriage even more. Marriage has felt like this key that will unlock the full experience of being a human and the full beauty of being a woman. And, even though some would say that's dangerously close to making marriage an idol, I still feel that way. But I can't control when I am blessed with my kingdom spouse. So, what do I do in the meantime? How do I find peace in the singleness? How do I feel fully alive, fully in my femininity while single and abstinent?

For me, the bedroom was a place the devil liked to play--both physically and mentally. So, even though I tried to reclaim my sexuality without the devil's influences, I couldn't stomach the shame that always came right after I did. So, I decided to pursue purity. This was almost two months ago, which is probably around the time I truly surrendered to the Lord. For me, masturbation is that secret sin, the one thing I do in private that I feel creates distance between me and God. So, I gave it up.

In those two months, I abstained from everything that could possibly arouse me. I've given up the books I used to read and am changing the way I write romance so that my own words don't become temptations. I'm changing the music I listen to. I'm mindful of the television I watch. And all those things have come pretty easily. The thing that was the kicker is the lack of physical touch whatsoever. I wasn't living in fear of arousal, but I was living in intentional disregard and denial of my flesh.

Getting out of the shower, I wouldn't look at myself in the mirror while naked. I would be careful not to accidentally graze anything sensitive. I was denying myself of everything, even innocent and loving touch. First, because I'm still learning what that even is. Second, because I didn't want it to turn into something else. But after two months of denying my flesh, I felt like I was dying.

My need for touch didn't come from a place of lust. It came from a place of needing to feel alive, to feel like a woman, to feel connected to myself. I didn't want to feel disconnected from God and so I battled the desire before giving in.

When I gave in, it was an act of pure survival. The suppression felt like it was killing me. The thoughts I had, even thoughts of jealousy toward people who are married and can experience all these things without guilt, just added to my anger toward God for not bringing me my husband. Everything became really heavy. I needed to feel something. Would it be pleasure, pain, or emptiness? Could I have the one without the other?

As I sat, I wrapped my arms around myself. At first, it was like I was hugging myself, but it quickly turned to me digging my nails into my skin. I didn't even think about it. It just happened. When I realized that it felt good, painful but good, I kept doing it until I felt like I had enough of a release to just breathe. I went to bed and woke up at 4 AM. It wasn't enough.

I brought God into the desire. I prayed about it before I did it, not asking His permission, but asking Him to meet me in the desire for connection and release, to grant me a release I didn't have to feel guilty about. Still, once I was done, I was in tears--like I always am. I felt like an alcoholic having to give up their two months sober token. My days had been reset. I'd threatened my closeness with God by giving in to sin. On top of it, I was sad because I knew that touch wasn't what I really wanted. It was the touch I had to settle for. Every moment in my bed alone is a reminder of the husband I don't have, the true love, connection, and intimacy that I crave but still have yet to receive.

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I still don't have all the answers. I'm still in the process of reclaiming my God-given identity as his daughter. I'm still learning what it means to be a woman of God. I'm battling many things, but the battles are just proof that I'm still in the war. I'm still fighting. I'm not giving in to the ways of the world. I'm not turning my back on God. I'm not going back to the devil's bondgage. I'm not giving up my desire for purity, for covenant marriage, for true love, and peace in the Lord. Nor will I let the devil shackle me in shame, like he's done in the past.

Even in my failure, I am seeking the Lord and in Him, I will find peace and strength. I just have to remember that I will never be perfect. I have to learn how to accept His love and mercy, how to give myself grace the way the Father does.

I am not the child being sent to her room for messing up. I am not the girl who received physical punishments or was emotionally dismissed. God is not abandoning me in my imperfection. He isn't running away from me or disgarding me. He isn't banishing me from His kingdom because I'm a sinner. He sent His Son for me. He still wants me. I just have to remember that. I have to remember that His mercies are new every morning and His love isn't based on my performance but His goodness.

This journey of coming home to God is just as much about rewiring my brain as it is trusting Him and surrendering to Him. So, I guess that's where I end tonight.

Lord, rewire my brain and heal the parts of me that are still broken, so that I may rest peacefully in your goodness, trust in your faithfulness, and know that my surrender to you is not wasted. Help me to know, without doubt, that you love me and your love for me is unconditional. Help me to know, without doubt, that I can trust you with all things, seek you in all things. Help me to endure this season of singleness, this season of desiring a marriage that has yet to come, this season of getting closer to you. Restore my faith in you and my hope in the future every time it's threatened. Protect me from the devil and all things evil. Guard my mind and my heart against Satan and his temptations. Heal me. Love me. Forgive me. And, when the time is right, please Lord, unite me with the man who can be the physical embodiment of your love for me. Allow me to experience the goodness of being a human, of being a woman. I don't want my story to be one of pain, guilt, shame, unmet desire, and a desperation for love that is never met. Write my happily ever after. I trust you with it more than I could ever trust myself. Just please remind me, on the days that I struggle, that my trust in you is not misplaced.

In Jesus' name,

Amen