Control, or Lack Thereof

We met with the contractor and got to walk through the house this week. It was so good to see a few ligaments on the bones. Most thrilling to me were the windows (the two on the left there were extras I added to the blueprint) in the living room and on the stairs. And the transom window (maybe it’s not even called that, I’m no architect) above the front door.  You know me: I need light.

The bad news: he confirmed that we absolutely will NOT be in the house before January. And most likely it will be the end of January when we move in. Poor Sam. He’s looking at an awful lot of driving…

The hard part for me is not being in control.

I am not in control.

I cannot make the house get built any quicker. I can’t make the stars align for our proposed trip in November. I can’t control the traffic patterns that change dramatically as the post-flood road repairs are being done.  I have no control over the interest rates, or when we get to lock in our final rate.  I am not in control.

That irks me. I am a planner and a fixer. I like to brainstorm and tweak and change and modify… until things are right. I’ve given up on just right— I’ll settle for good enough. And I can’t even manage to pull that off.

I think this lesson of control has been the fundamental lesson I have learned (and forgotten, and had to learn over again) in parenting. From our “mistimed” pregnancies, to our miscarriages, to my thoroughly researched and planned potty training that took two years to complete, the constant in my parenting has been that I am not in control.

I don’t think of it as Murphy’s Law, or Cosmic Revenge, but that God has a big plans, and his plan for me is that I will (someday, eventually) be a person who trusts him. Who is not a control freak. Who can walk in the dark, either because I am comfortable enough in the dark to wait until my eyes adjust, or because I hear his voice clearly enough to walk forward when I hear.

So I’m back to baby steps. I can’t control what next year or next month or next week looks like. Maybe I’ll just finish out this afternoon. I will enjoy the September light on the trees and trust that I don’t have to be in control.

God’s got this.