The Glad Surrender Poem by Mary Wismer

Deliver me Lord, from the fear of being despised.
Oh, how I need this fearlessness for witnessing.
The fear of suffering rebuke
Yet I need correction to avoid lagging in my discipleship.
I must learn to speak to others both in love and rebuke,
Though I learn primarily from thy love.
Teach me, earnest to speak through thy word.

The exhortations of others.
God, give me, I believe,
Increasing Grace to take rebukes,
By it has taken years. I reacted
Like a rattlesnake to the first
Rebuke I got as a Christian.

Fear of being forgotten by friends.
If I don’t struggle to prove my
Worthiness or helpfulness,
My past contributions may be forgotten.
Let me fear being remembered only for the past.
But you remember every good thing I do,
And that's sufficient.

Deliver me, Jesus, from the fear of being ridiculed.
Wise is the person who can laugh at himself!
Sometimes there is such
Good cause! Sometimes the ridicule is malicious
And is in tended to hurt. It may be difficult to realize
At such times that the ridicule is a boomerang,
Injuring the source. But you Lord looks on the heart,
And if my heart is right I may be filled with peace.
As I bare my heart to you, you is quick to reassure
When man is quick to ridicule.

The fear of being wrong, may keep me from trusting others.
This fear can be crippling, preventing me from taking a step
Of faith immediately before me. Fear of being suspected,
Misunderstood by someone, no matter what I do.
Jesus grant me the grace to desire that others be loved more
Than I. Love which I can help to supply.
Wherever I go I meet people who need love and attention
To be visited, listened to, written to, and prayed with.

How can this enormous need be met?
Only by your grace working in me that others
May be esteemed more than I, grant me desire that
In the opinion of the world may increase, and I
Must decrease that others may be chosen,
And I set aside. Those others may be preferred to me in everything
Those others may be praised and I unnoticed.
But I must decrease. I must hide behind the cross,
That you my Lord may be seen and worshiped.
I must recognize my self as nobody, Jesus, you will be my all.
And I surrender all to you.