DEVOTIONAL
In January 2025, I sat in my parents' house in England with just four suitcases to my name. No job. No relationship. No plan. I had just left the country I'd spent five years building a life in, and every instinct in me wanted to fix it. Make a plan. Figure out the steps.
Control something, anything, because I had nothing left that felt like mine.
So I did the opposite of what felt natural…. I fasted for five days. Deep prayer twice a day, and for the first time, I wasn't praying to get an answer fast. I was praying to let go of needing one on my timeline at all.
I had decided I would believe God without needing to control how or when.
That prayer, the one where I opened my hands instead of gripping tighter, was the real turning point. Not the fasting itself. The surrender underneath it.
What Surrender Actually Means
I used to think surrender meant giving up on wanting something. Saying "fine, I guess it's not happening" and trying to convince myself I didn't care anymore. That's not surrender. That's resignation wearing surrender's clothes.
The Hebrew word behind Psalm 37:5, "Commit your way to the Lord," is gālal, which literally means to roll. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight (Proverbs 3:5-6). That is not a passive instruction. It is an active, repeated choice to roll what you cannot carry onto the One who can.
The Greek word behind Romans 12:1, present your bodies as a living sacrifice, is paristēmi, meaning to place before, to offer willingly. Paul isn't describing a life that has been destroyed. He's describing a life that has been deliberately handed over, still fully alive, still fully desiring, just no longer clenched in your own fists.
Even Jesus modeled this in Gethsemane. He didn't pretend He wasn't in anguish. He said plainly, "If it is possible, may this cup be taken from me." Then He surrendered: "Yet not as I will, but as you will" (Matthew 26:39).
He was honest about what He wanted. And He still handed the outcome over. That is the model. Not denial. Honest desire, released.
Why This Is So Hard In The Single Season
Surrendering your timeline for a husband feels different from surrendering other things, because this desire touches something so personal.
It's not like surrendering a job outcome or a financial situation. It's your future family. Your home. Whether you'll be chosen. It feels like surrendering a piece of your own story.
But here's what I learned in that season by the fire: the exhaustion I felt before I surrendered wasn't coming from the waiting itself. It was coming from trying to carry something that was never mine to carry alone. Every calculation, every timeline I built in my head, every quiet comparison to someone else's engagement announcement, was me gripping something God was asking me to roll onto Him.
The moment I stopped gripping, the anxiety didn't disappear instantly. But something in me settled. I wasn't managing my future anymore. I was trusting the One who already saw it.
What Surrender Actually Looks Like Day To Day
1. Keep the desire. Release the deadline. Surrender is not pretending you don't want marriage. It's telling God honestly that you do, and then releasing your grip on exactly when and how it happens.
2. Name the specific thing you're gripping. For me it was an age, a country, a plan for how my life should look. Naming it out loud, even in a whispered prayer, breaks its grip on you.
3. Keep showing up faithfully while you wait. Surrender is not passivity. I still worked, still built, still lived fully during that season. I just stopped needing my effort to control the outcome.
4. Return to the surrender daily, not once. I didn't surrender my timeline one time and never think about it again. Some mornings I woke up gripping it all over again, and I had to physically open my hands and pray Psalm 37:5 over it, again.
That season taught me the difference between waiting and trusting. Waiting is just time passing. Trusting is what happens inside you while it does.
Seven months after I surrendered from rock bottom, I met my husband. I'm not telling you that to promise you a timeline. I'm telling you because I know what it feels like to carry something you were never meant to carry alone, and I know what it feels like when you finally put it down.
Personal message from Zena 💗
These weekly devotionals are a real labour of love, created to help you feel seen, supported, and anchored in God while you wait.
If this encouraged you today and you’d like to help me keep writing them each week, you can Buy Me a Coffee (click here) 😊☕
No pressure at all. You being here means so much.
🙏 Let’s finish with a closing prayer 🙏
Thank You, Lord, for being trustworthy with the things I have been too afraid to let go of. Thank You for wanting good things for me, even better than what I have planned for myself. I roll my timeline onto You today. I release the deadline, the comparison, the need to control how this unfolds. Help me keep my desire alive without gripping it so tightly it exhausts me. Teach me, like Jesus in the garden, to be honest about what I want and still say, not my will, but Yours. In Jesus' name, amen.
With love and faith,
Zena