Control. Again.

Control.

That is the word of the day.  I’m not very fond of that word of the day mainly because as mentioned in some of my former posts,  I struggle with it.

I was a control freak in high school and in some ways a lot of my college years.  I finally gave up some control miraculously for some amounts of time later in college, but this insatiable need for control keeps creeping back in.

Monday I had a rotten morning.  It was a culmination of everything that I was worrying about not going right.  I had a reservation for a trailer that was falling through, my email wouldn’t work, I couldn’t figure out an account on my computer, I haven’t heard out of someone I needed info from in about a week and I told my sister I’d ride along with her to a job interview an hour and a half away…and we needed to leave in the midst of all of this.

My solution to all of these problems: Chuck my laptop down on the couch and march out the door, throw my phone to the floor board in the car and pout.   Yup, I threw a grown-up’s tantrum.

My sister knows me pretty well and waited until we were about 20 min. in to the drive before she even asked if I was ok.  I said yes quickly and then she knew I needed another 10 or so minutes.

Finally she sensed it was alright to talk to me and told me she knew it was more than just one thing that upset me.  So I spilled it all, all the things that were bugging me and ticking me off.   She casually said to me, “yea, but none of those things are in your control.”

That is when I realized it.  I could do nothing about it.  Those things were out of my control.

Why does my much younger sister always have to be much wiser too???? :)

After I took a deep breath and muttered a little prayer things settled back down.  In fact things worked out for all of my issues by 3 o’clock that afternoon.  It was a relief, but at the same time that relief came I realized that I didn’t deserve that relief.  The way I approached the situation was not how I normally work, is it possible that at some point everyone needs to throw a tantrum?  What if things didn’t work out by 3 o’clock?

Monday night as I was saying a little prayer I thanked God for my sister.  I thanked Him for putting the right words in her mouth and for being on her heart.  I told him I was sorry and that I know he is in control.  I hate when I fight what He is planning.  Then I got myself in maybe a little over my head, I asked God to help me to continually give up control.

I have a feeling that there will be many more blog posts to come that have to subject matter of control.