I really like to be in control. A lot. I have a plan in my head and it is the best one of all the plans. If someone else is making the plan and I am to follow it, we need to stick to the plan. There is not much room for flexibility with me. Okay, maybe I seem flexible on the outside sometimes, but on the inside I am fixed in place and I shall not be moved.
Examples:
I grew up going out to lunch with people after church nearly every week. I enjoy this and wish I did it more often. Now, on Sunday, if someone was to approach me and say, “Hey, do you want to grab lunch after church today?” I would almost certainly say no. Because I have a plan for today and it is already in motion – sorry. If that same someone was to approach me and say, “Hey, do you want to grab lunch after church next week?” I would almost certainly say yes. I can work that into the plan for next week.
I get frustrated at traffic lights if I need to go straight and arrived just as the light turned red. It also really gets my goat if the oncoming traffic gets to go first. Now, if I am on the side that gets to go first, that is awesome. There are intersections where I get excited to drive one way through it because I’ll be first, and sad to go the other way because I’ll be second. What is wrong with me?
Ryan has flexible work hours, meaning as long as he gets his work finished, he can work whenever and for however long he wants. What this means in reality is sometimes he works normal hours and sometimes he comes home for dinner, goes back to work, and comes home around 2 or 3 in the morning. Anyhow. He has been known to sleep through his alarm so I wake him up in the mornings. I ask him every night when he would like to get up the following day. If he tells me 8, I wake him up at 8. If he doesn’t get out of bed right that second, I get really stressed out because why isn’t he waking up? when should I go back in to get him up again? he’s going to be late! it’s my fault if he doesn’t get up! but maybe he wants to sleep longer. in that case, Eli, be quiet because your dad’s trying to sleep! or maybe be louder because he needs to get up. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. what do I do? this is not the plan!
The other day at the grocery store, I was putting Eli in the seat of the cart. He is squirmy deluxe, and it’s hard to buckle him in but it has to be done because otherwise he will fling himself over the side of the cart in desperate hopes of grabbing those goldfish crackers off of the shelf. I was off to the side, in front of one row of two carts. There were four other rows of identical carts but apparently the couple standing behind me needed one of the particular ones that I was blocking. They stood behind me sighing loudly and shifting their weight from side to side. I was going as fast as I could but Eli kept wriggling around. (JUST GO GET ANOTHER CART FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!) Eventually I got him situated and headed into the store, at which point one member of the couple behind me says, “Wow, she was really in her own little bubble there, huh? Wonder what her problem was.” You know, friend, I could ask you the same questions. I stewed angrily for the whole trip to the store and ended up forgetting the three things I went to get. This meant that I didn’t have the ingredients for what I was going to make for dinner. Ryan and I had cereal because I just couldn’t figure out another plan.
One of the really nice days that we had earlier this winter, I managed to convince Ryan to take a couple of hours off to go for a hike with Eli and I. There is a trail close to our house where you can feed songbirds right out of your hand, so we headed down there with some birdseed. I was so excited to get all these adorable pictures of Eli watching the birds eating out of our hands and everything. When we got there, fifty other people had the same idea as us and the birds weren’t hungry anymore. They were off somewhere sleeping. And the snow was all slushy and muddy and slippery. Basically the whole thing was a bust and I was really upset. It was a complete waste of Ryan’s precious time off and there weren’t even any birds.
Last week my church started their focus on a different spiritual discipline each week for Lent. The focus for the first week was submission, and the guiding text was, “Practice laying aside the need to be in charge. Spend time with God and seek His will.” Our pastor printed this, along with a daily meditation from Psalm 91, on a business card; I tucked it into the side of the bathroom mirror at home where I’d see it often.
Monday morning, I woke Ryan up and he kept sleeping. I was so frustrated because was it going to be my fault if he misses something at work because I didn’t nag him to get out of bed but I hate being a nag. I walked into the bathroom to brush my teeth, and there it was, big as life.
PRACTICE LAYING ASIDE THE NEED TO BE IN CHARGE.
I started laughing, because, really, what other reaction is there. Crying, maybe. But I laughed (this time). Monday afternoon, some lady honked at me because I was taking too much time putting Eli in his car seat and she needed right that second to pull in but couldn’t do it with the amount of space that a normal person needs. I fumed all the way home, put Eli down for his nap, headed to go to the bathroom (BY MYSELF! hooray!) and there it was again.
PRACTICE LAYING ASIDE THE NEED TO BE IN CHARGE.
And that was just Monday. Five more days of that, friends.
I hated this week of discipline because I found it so very hard. (The current week is focused on fasting, which, in contrast, I’ve never had a problem doing. Giving up something that I like, to sit in silence and focus on what a sinner I am listen to God? BRING IT ON.) Why is it that I can’t just trust Ryan that he is an adult and knows when to go to work? That I love driving but can’t take a spin around the block without getting super upset at someone else’s idiotic behavior in their car? That little things like the “push here to easily open” tab on the macaroni box (LIES!) can throw me for a loop? That the door on the bathroom medicine cabinet needs to be closed because how can I walk through the house knowing that it’s open just the tiniest of cracks? That it makes me throw up a little in my mouth when Eli closes a book halfway through without knowing what the ending is and moves on to another one? That things need to be as they should, and if they aren’t, all is lost?
He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.” Psalm 91:1-2 (ESV)
There are two words in these verses with which I have trouble: “abide” and “trust.” Neither of those things comes easily to me. I adore sleeping and reading and just hanging out, but have always had a difficult time resting. And I trust people – especially those I love – implicitly and to a fault, because they’re only human. But God? Well, that’s a whole other story. Because He’s GOD and I don’t like not understanding Him and well, I’ll be honest, I don’t like not being in control. I am only now starting to realize that belief in God is not the same thing as trust in God.
I guess what I’m saying is that I am happy to live in God’s house, and be sheltered by his wings, and run to Him when I don’t know where to go. But I always have one eye on the exits and I keep my back to the wall so no one can sneak up on me. This is no way to live, in real life or in a spiritual one.
So I’m going to practice laying aside the need to be in charge; confess my sin of hesitance and doubt; ask Thomas the Apostle, Saint Joseph, Mother Teresa, W.H. Auden, C.S. Lewis, and all of you to pray for me; and continue to meditate on the beginning of Psalm 91.
For I do believe that someday I will abide in the shadow of the Almighty and I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”
(Thanks, Dan, for the prompt to write a Lenten reflection!)