A Story of Surrender and Resistance by Matt Willingham
“I knew she didn’t have anyone, I kept praying she wouldn’t die alone.”
Everyday peacemaker Jamie Alm is sharing about her work alongside refugees, disabled friends, and others in her Seattle spheres of influence, and this line stood out.
“I couldn’t let her die alone.”
Seattle summers are usually glorious, when months of wet gloom are replaced by soft sunshine, but the climate is changing.
“Summers are getting hotter here, and this past summer was brutal,” Jamie sighed. People who can’t afford AC are left to stew. Shut-ins, the disabled, and the unhoused suffer most.
Homes were 97 degrees inside at night, and it was during this heatwave that Jamie got a call saying her friend Sari was in the ER.
On a weekly visit to help her bathe, Sari’s caregiver found her delirious and feverish. Jamie called every hospital in the area trying to find Sari with no luck.
“After a few days, I wasn’t sure what else to do,” Jamie shared. “Should I call the morgues? So many suffered under that heat it was difficult to know what my role should be, but I couldn’t let her die alone.”
So why would Jamie keep trying to help, subjecting herself to such heartbreak knowing there’s often little she can do? Why do you keep at the difficult work you do, and how do you keep going?
Jamie has two words for us: “I work to live with a posture that’s both one of Surrender and Resistance,” she explains.
Jamie noted it’s not Surrender or Resistance. It’s both.
Resistance means working to dismantle oppressive systems, it’s refusing to let Sari die alone, refusing to give up the search for this disabled and dying friend, but a posture of only Resistance can lead to burnout, isolation, and worse.
Surrender counterbalances Resistance as we remember this is all ultimately God’s world. Surrender acknowledges there are things we simply can’t control, we are part of a larger whole.
For Jamie, Surrender means acknowledging that she can’t do everything for Sari. Resistance says she can surely do something. Surrender reminds her to ask for help, to find rest, and to make time for contemplative practices so she can keep resisting.
So today, as you consider this new year and your next steps into everyday peacemaking, remember we can bring about change, we can do difficult work, we can resist, and we can find rest, we can avoid burnout—and we’re never alone.
Jamie Alm is an Everyday Peacemaker in the Seattle area
Author: Matt Willingham
Matt Willingham is a writer, photographer, and content creator with over ten years experience living and working in some of the hardest-hit conflict zones in the world. He and his wife, Cayla, are now based in San Diego where they’re raising three little peacemakers and working to promote empathy and understanding in their community.
@matt.willingham