Giving Up Control

I think one of the hardest things I have to deal with in life, is giving up control.  I don’t consider myself a “control freak,” but every time a circumstance comes up that I struggle with….I realize one of the common factors is that I’m struggling to give up my control over that situation.

We all set out with preconceived expectations for our lives. Maybe not intentionally, but they are there.  Marry the prince, get a good career, have perfect kids, reliable friends…and those are only the basics. Yet even with the basics, life likes to mess with us.  There is no such thing as a perfect kid, a friend that never lets us down, etc.

I have expectations. We all do. We have dreams. Wishes. Desires. And when life throws us a curveball that we never expected, it shatters all our perfectly laid-out plans.

We lose control.

The older I get, the more I’m learning that I don’t really have control over much of anything in my life. Sometimes, out of luck, or God’s grace and mercy, things DO go perfectly as I set out in my mind that they would go. But more often than naught, they go on a different course.  And there’s the internal struggle. Every. Time.

An internal tug-of-war happens when I realize that what I want is not going to happen. Sometimes, not anytime soon – other times, not any time at all. 

I grieve over the loss of what I wanted to happen. The hopes, the joys I felt I would experience if things had ended up differently. And yet, through the struggle, God often works in my heart. He molds my never-budging stubborn pride to see things from a new perspective and in a different way.

What IS normal? What IS perfect? Chances are, things wouldn’t have been normal or perfect had I gotten my way. Those too, would have had their own twists and turns in them.

That’s life.  Ups, downs, corners and hills. Valleys and mountains, sunshine and rain. It’s all a part of the process and I have control over none of it. But I do know One who does have control. He keeps me in His loving hands despite how many times I fight Him on His direction. He sees the big picture whereas I cannot.  That’s the one thing I always DO have control of. My faith.

So no matter what happens, through thick or thin, I know that even though I may go through the age-old battle and internal struggle that I so desperately want to learn how to overcome, God is with me and He is FOR me.  And that’s one thing I pray I never forget.