Control

There is something so powerful about the feeling of being in control.  I think that is why a lot of people (me included) avoid having faith of any kind.  Because once we admit that there is something or Someone bigger than us and that there is a bigger picture than the limited things we see, it means we are no longer in control of everything in our lives.  Sure, we still have a reasonable amount of control--what we eat, what we wear, what books we read, TV/movies we watch, how we treat others, etc.  But, if we subscribe to a faith, then we must admit that whatever we decide to put our faith in also controls aspects of our lives.  Like our health, the people who will cross our paths, when we'll die, and what happens to us after we die.  And those are things I think most of us really want to have control over.

Lack of control can produce fear.  Fear isn't a good thing.  It can lead to destructive behavior.  The lack of control can also produce defense mechanisms, at least for me.  I somehow need to be comforted when I feel things are out of control.  Like a baby who sucks her thumb and needs that comfort to fall asleep or keep quiet.  By creating these defenses, we have the illusion that we still have control.  My defense mechanisms include things like cleaning and organizing.  I do them often, and ritualistically.  Because it makes me feel in control.  When life feels like it is spiraling out of control (like with a flare up or with all this stuff that happened with my school), I clean and organize even more.

When I was younger, I used to cut.  It actually has a clinical name now and people are more up front about doing it.  Back when I was 13 and 14 and was cutting, it wasn't popular.  It didn't have a name.  It was a secretive thing that we didn't want others to know about.  I know it sounds strange that I would use mutilating my body to comfort me, but I tell you, it worked.  It gave me control.  And, it let me see proof of the confusion and pain I was feeling inside, from being diagnosed with a chronic illness at age 12 and the heartbreak of first "love" and of feeling like I didn't belong anywhere, not at school, not with friends, not even in my family.  As I look back on that time, I understand that my problem wasn't that I needed control.  It was that I needed to give that up.  When this occured to me at the age of 23, after getting diagnosed with pre-cancerous polyps, it helped me realize that I needed to seek something outside of myself to lean on when I felt out of control.  My search eventually led to the one, true God.  And His Son, Christ Jesus.  By recognizing Jesus as my Savior, I am willfully giving Him full control of my life.  Or, I should anyway.

It isn't easy for me.  I still really struggle with it, 11 years later.  I still try to compensate for my lack of control, only not in self-destructive ways.  It's a prayer that I say to God every night, to give me the courage to release that desire to want to be in control.  And to not have to do something (like cleaning or organizing; its been more than a decade since I've cut) to comfort myself.  That He would truly be enough.  That His plan for me isn't to harm me, even when I am in the middle of a flare up.  That all things (including the bad things, like Crohns or cancer or losing my son) work out for my good because He loves me.  Before I knew Him, my only option was myself, and well, quite frankly, I am inept (at best) and can only screw everything up, as seen in my past.  Putting my trust and faith into a Sovereign God is the best way to feel in control.  When we are truly willing to give it up.

Jeremiah 29:11 ~ "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."


2 Corinthians 12:9-10 ~ "But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.  That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."


Romans 8:28 ~ "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."