Strong Women and the Slow Work of Surrender

Stripping My Self Reliance

When you’ve been labeled, stamped, and proven as strong, responsible, and productive, you don’t realize how deeply those things become woven into your identity.

You stop seeing them as things you do and start seeing them as who you are.

Self-reliance isn’t simply being responsible.

It’s the belief that the outcome rests on you.

That if you can think hard enough, work long enough, plan well enough, or push far enough, you can produce the result you need.

For most of my life, if there was a problem, I found a solution.

If there was a goal, I created a plan.

If there was a challenge, I worked harder.

Life required it.

Many of us learned early how to carry weight, solve problems, manage responsibilities, and keep moving forward no matter how tired we were.

And while it was exhausting at times, it made sense.

Effort produced outcomes.

Work produced results.

Responsibility produced stability.

So I kept moving.

I was almost always pursuing something.

A solution.

A degree.

A promotion.

A dream.

But over the last few years, something has shifted.

Not just in my circumstances.

In me.

This has been the slowest season of my life.

Some days I breathe a sigh of relief. I notice the beauty in ordinary moments. I thank God for peace, for healing, and for simply being in my right mind.

Other days I feel restless.

I find myself questioning my worth based on productivity markers that no longer seem to apply.

I wonder if I’ve missed an instruction somewhere.

I wonder if I should be doing more.

If I’m honest, I like plans.

I like control.

I like clear next steps and measurable outcomes in an expedited timeframe.

Surrender, on the other hand, has felt slow, unexpected, and unnerving.

This past weekend, we hosted my aunt and uncle. My uncle is a respected pastor and thought leader, and I found myself sharing some of my frustrations about this season.

What he said stopped me in my tracks.

I’m paraphrasing, but this was the essence of it:

“In the world, you were responsible for creating the plan, following the plan, and producing the outcomes.

In the Kingdom, you’re only responsible for obedience.

You don’t create the plan. God does.

You aren’t responsible for the outcomes either.

And just because the outcomes aren’t favorable in your eyes doesn’t mean you’ve missed God’s will.”

I have thought about those words ever since.

Because I realized some of my frustration was natural.

But some of it was self-inflicted.

I was trying to apply natural logic to a spiritual journey.

The world taught me that if I did the right things, I could produce the desired result.

The Kingdom keeps teaching me that obedience and outcomes are not the same thing.

At its core, surrender is less about outcomes and more about whose will ultimately prevails.

Jesus modeled this perfectly in the Garden of Gethsemane when He prayed:

“Nevertheless, not My will, but Yours, be done.” (Luke 22:42)

I’ve realized that surrender isn’t simply giving God control of my circumstances.

It’s surrendering my preferred outcomes.

The timeline I would choose.

The opportunities I would choose.

The path I would choose.

The version of the story I would choose.

And trusting that His will is better than mine, even when it doesn’t look the way I hoped it would.

One of the hardest parts of this lesson is that self-reliance wasn’t all bad.

In fact, it was often rewarded.

It helped me navigate seasons where there was no clear roadmap and no one telling me what to do next.

It helped me carry responsibilities that needed to be carried.

Which is why this lesson has been so challenging.

God isn’t confronting something that always hurt me.

He’s confronting something that often helped me.

It’s easier to surrender things that failed us than things that once worked.

But what helps us survive one season can become a limitation in another.

At some point, God begins inviting us into a deeper level of trust.

Not because we’re incapable.

Not because hard work is wrong.

But because He wants us to learn the difference between faithfulness and control.

I think that’s what He’s been doing in me.

Stripping away the illusion that I can manufacture outcomes.

Teaching me that my responsibility is obedience.

His responsibility is everything else.

I suspect I’m not the only woman learning this lesson.

Many of us have spent years being capable.

Being dependable.

Being the one others could count on.

And while those qualities aren’t wrong, they can quietly convince us that everything depends on us.

Eventually God begins teaching us otherwise.

And if I’m honest, that’s harder than working yourself to the bone.

Because working feels productive.

Trusting feels vulnerable.

Yet this is the invitation.

To trust Him enough to follow without knowing exactly how the story ends.

To trust Him enough to obey without managing the outcome.

To trust Him enough to believe that even when life doesn’t look the way I expected, He is still leading.

Maybe that’s what surrender really is.

Not doing nothing.

But releasing the burden of being God.

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Have you ever found yourself confusing responsibility with control?

I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

If you’d like to connect beyond Substack, you can find me on IG: Alexis Lindsey