My ten month son Brayden is sleeping in his crib for the first time tonight. As I laid him in this foreign space, he cried with a familiar sense of abandonment that I recalled when I was only a month older than him in a foster home. I lie on the floor next to his crib and wedge my hand through the bars of the crib to comfort him with an extended hand. He wrapped both of his tiny hands in mine and even touched me with his foot for reassurance. I sang two of the made up lullabies that I’ve sung to him since the first day he was announced into this world. I repeated the verses over and over until his cries soon faded into a slumber that signaled his sleep. The deal was sealed when I felt his grip loosen in mine. Overwhelming tears filled my eyes and I sobbed from my soul. I surrendered to the truth that my baby is growing into a little boy. I surrendered to the vulnerability that surrendering to God’s will is all that I can attempt to do. I surrender to love and all its joy, beauty and sorrow. I surrender to the loss of a sister who died way too soon. I surrender to a father who rejects me. I surrender to a mother who has been absent most of my life and now lives with a paralyzed left arm from a stroke that is the result of fifty years of two packs a day smoking. And I, with all my heart and conviction, surrender to the gratitude that wakes me each day to get up and be my very best. Not just for my son, my wife and myself; but to the love and mercy I believe God blesses all of us with. I surrender to the belief that surrendering completely is the freedom that holds true peace. A peace of acceptance, tolerance and forgiveness for myself, that frees me to live life in love not fear. I surrender to all my fears and give them up to God with total faith that every little thing will be alright. I hear my son crying, I must surrender to my need to be a father and tend to him. I surrender…
