Control, Control, Control

I want control. I want to be in control. When I feel like I am not in control, I freak out and write posts like yesterday's. I want to control everything in my life. When my need for control is this high, trusting God seems impossible. Trusting God means relinquishing my illusion of control over to Him.

Even as I write that, I feel my blood pressure rising. NO! I must have the control!

It's funny because I never have control. I never had it. I never can! This is not my world. This is God's world. I wish my life to be God's life. I wish to turn myself entirely over to Him.

Even as I write that, a calm comes over me, and I exhale peacefully.

I have been frantically trying to control everything at work so that I can control what my next shift will be so that I can more easily control my life and be home with my kids when I want to be. Because then my illusion of control will be more believable. I'll think I have some. I'll think that it's because of my awesomeness that I have a great shift. It's because of my needs as a single mom that I am home with them. I got this. I did this.

When I was in the prisons on Sunday, I was panicking because our escorts weren't there when I wanted them to be. We were going to be late! Then there were two surprise speakers at our first prison when we were supposed to be the only part of the program. I panicked because they weren't on MY agenda. This was going to ruin everything. At the 2nd prison, it seemed to take forever to get prepared (we had to wait for the rotation and it seemed to be taking a lot of time), and I panicked about time. Again. At the 3rd prison, it took also forever to get prepared and I remembered that at Christmastime, this prison was the one that is super finicky about time so we had to get started straight away. And the inmate choir director kept talking to me about getting them music for the Christmas program and I didn't really know how to make a decision and anyway, while we were doing our program, during the 2nd song which was a solo, I was looking out at all the offenders and suddenly this calm came over me. Suddenly I realized, this is not my program. This is not my choir. I'm here because God wants us here and because He loves these offenders so much. This isn't about me. I realized I needed to stop trying to control it. And I gave the rest of the day to Him. And I sat back and enjoyed the program, enjoyed the choir, without worrying about what is going to happen next. And I felt a Heavenly nudge to apply this thought to my life. I need to stop trying to control it! I can't anyway. I can make the best choices I know how. I can be the best mother I know how. I can forgive myself, and move forward every day. But even my best efforts cannot, will not, create the life I think I want.

Whatever happens today at work is what happens today at work. This is not my world. I will not fear because I don't need to. Oh, God, let me keep this reassurance throughout this day, especially at work!

Besides that, it's not what I do at work that matters most. It's what I do at home. And I've been really doing better at home, as a parent, as a responsible adult.

Addiction is an illusion of control. I don't mean the addiction itself. But when I rush to pornography, masturbation, food, kissing, Pepsi, Facebook, etc., it's because I'm afraid of real life. It's because something in real life has threatened my sense of control. And if I can't control real life, then I'm going to do something I can control. My addictive behaviors do give me a momentary sense of control. When life is crazy, I feel like I can calm it down with anything on the above list. But, I logically understand that the opposite is true. Those behaviors make my life even more unmanageable and quickly get totally out of my control.

Control itself is simply an illusion. I hope to soon understand that with my heart.