I’m not in control of my life.
Sure, parts of it are neatly, docilely in place, waiting like an obedient dog told “Stay.” The other parts rampage all along the opposite end of the scale. Some areas need to be held carefully between thumb and forefinger as they squirm and resist my attempts to make them be still and behave. Further along the “While I’m Hieing to Chaos” spectrum, sections of my life behave like cats, with total indifference to my cajoling and saunter off, tail held high so I can see exactly what they think of my efforts. Then there are the areas that are wheezing, cranky camels – I don’t know why exactly they are there but I’m wary, not even attempting to approach, and pretty certain they are going to start spitting. Soon. And I’m going to be the one left with the mess.
I don’t expect life to be all 120% under my control. Three reasons easily spring to mind – single parenthood and life. Being a single parent by definition means that something happened outside my control, and single parenthood brings with it a mountain range of valleys, caves, peaks and waterfalls that wait uncharted and cannot be planned for. Or controlled. It’s the same with life. I don’t live in island isolation (as beguiling and calm as the idea sounds at times), instead, I am deep in the jungle cacophony of my existence, with all the disarray, dust, fur and flying feathers that comes with the choices, mistakes, dreams and relationships made, both by myself and others.
But I have some control. Control over how I fold sheets, and stack them neatly in my linen cupboard, just the way I like it. Control in what I wear, the amount of effort I put into taming my hair, making dessert and exercising. Control over which words I use, be they spoken, thought or typed. Control over my sentences, so that I deliberately only listed two reasons for not being in total control after claiming three.
Because the third reason why I don’t expect life to be totally under my control is because I have choice. I could make my life a shining, mind-numbing example of control, but I would be a incinerated, twisted puddle of crazy sobbing in the corner as a result. I don’t want everything to be just the way I want it. I want my life to be the way it’s meant to be, how it has the boundless, unimaginable potential to be.
Not just good. Not good enough. Not even better. But best.
And frankly, I have no idea what that means. Or how to get there. In those moments when my linen cupboard has vomited cotton and blankets all over the house, and my dining table is being eaten by barbarian hordes of permission slips and to do lists, all I know is that I’ve not only lost control of my life, but the belief that I had been in control in the first place.
That’s when I have to pry my denying, pride thickened fingers from my own throat, and accept I need help. Help to survive. Help accepting that control does not mean success, or happiness. Accepting that God is in His heaven, and that He knows what He is doing. And that maybe – probably – .. And definitely, that letting go of our actual and/or perceived control over our own lives gives that same control to Him, and He will make it all for our own good.
Even if it involves a camel.
Are you a control freak? What do the uncontrolled parts of your life remind you of? What is something you do in your life that tells you you are coping, that you “have it under control”? How easy is it for you to give up control?
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