Control Freak

I’ve been listening to the song, Manasseh by Anna Golden on repeat. I was introduced to the song through a bible study I attend and it randomly popped into my head Mansassah means to forget the suffering in my father’s house. It was the name of Joseph’s firstborn son. 

I am starting to have this understanding of how I have been walking out my faith with God. There’s a place in her song where she says, “You can let it all go, he will take it from here.” I am struck in recognizing that my doer's heart likes to be taken over by a control freak! I trust God, but I do all things in my own strength. I muscle through, I strong-arm things, and I keep up a brave face because that is what you do. You just keep going. 

I think there is a dependency that I am not leaning into where God is sovereign or above all. He has spent the last year teaching me about forgiveness. Not really asking for it, but offering it to others. He’s taught me that I cannot move forward in his power and might with bags of resentment, distrust, cynicism, and pride draped around me like water jugs balanced on a dowel across my shoulders. Then I add what I think I should be doing to please God and answer the call on my life and things bobble and sway and all that pride, resentment, and the like slosh out around me in large splash zones. Do I have a splash zone surrounding me? I do. 

The deeper I understand repentance and true surrender, the more I learn that I have been trying to control everything I do for years. I have thought, if one thing isn’t working then I clearly need to pivot and change my approach, and then that didn’t work either. Something in the song made me realize, somewhere along the way I keep picking the reigns back up and thinking I’m steering this roadshow. 

I am starting to see that it can only go so far and this season is required to get me into a place where I am either allowing him to be Lord or I will remain on this hamster wheel of striving and regret working with all my might to get to a destination that doesn’t exist.

I had no clue when He whispered to me he was calling me into full-time ministry what he was leading me into was a wilderness of a forest fire to burn off everything I thought, expected, and held tightly to. It’s been a slow stripping away, many tears, lots of hard questions asked over and over again. But on this end, all these years later, when things still circumstantially don’t “look” like what I want them to I see the exchange. I can see how He has gently steered me more into his image, he’s righted wrong assumptions and fears I carried about Him, and He’s healed me to know that He is good and worth the investment. I wanted to give up and quit many times, I questioned if I’d still be a believer when I got through the other side, but I have tasted and seen and I don’t know where else to place hope but in Him. Thankfully, He doesn’t let me forget how great He is and how wonderful I know him to be. 

Joy isn’t happiness. It’s standing in a hope you know you can trust despite the circumstances looking like an utter disaster. It’s taken me a long time to understand this, to allow the truth of who He is to be enough to sustain me and be my strength. He’s faithful to keep after you, even when you don’t know if you can keep after yourself. He’s never failed me, let me walk away in my seeking, or failed to answer me in His timing, which is always right on time. I’m still learning every day that I can let it all go and let Him take it from here, but at least I can!

Until the Shock Wears Off

Written December 18,2024

Two weeks tomorrow my mom died, and today it feels like I have a lead ball in my gut, and am just on the edge of biting someone’s face off in a rage that is surly not meant for them. 

I haven’t lost it on anyone, well the lady on the road who was in the rong but hoked at me, I honked back and yell’ed, “I GOT ONE TOO” to her through my rolled up windows. I guess grief comes out in ugly sometimes. 

It’s not even like I am terribly missing her as much as it’s just this terrible heaviness that is settling in that I know will have it’s own process and all I can do right now is allow it its space knowing it won’t be here forever. 

Depression was like that, I ignored things that were hurting me for a very long time until it nearly undid me. I learned not to partner with something as the way it is but to recognize that life is on a cycle and seasons come and go and though I don’t accept it as forever, I understand I need to allow room for the feelings for them to cycle through in a healthy capacity. Today, it sucks balls though. 

It’s gorgeous outside and not even that is relenting the hollow ache in the back of my throat that just sits there without moving, just weighted. 

Everything is just weighted. 

It’s heavy that she died, the unspoken questions are heavy, the what-ifs are heavy, and the reality of today is heavy. If I’m deeply honest with myself, I want to numb it all until it passes. I have had thoughts of ways to self-medicate, seek comfort in external desires, and get in my car and just never look back. I don’t know how I’ll do on all the things, thankfully there is grace rich for each day. 

Shall We Dance?

I stopped at a gas station to grab a drink and while paying the cashier I noticed a wisp of a young girl, pregnant, looking tired, and counting change her in hand. Back in my car, the pregnant girl caught my eye as I started to drive off.

For a moment I debated going up to her, but I had to. I drove over beside her car and asked if she needed some gas in her car as she’d only pumped $4.81. As I pumped the gas she looked at me and shared, “It’s been a bad day.”

“They happen,” I responded. She told me her boyfriend was taken to jail this morning, and it was the worst day. As young and pregnant as she was, I empathized that it probably was for her. I asked when she was due and asked a few more general care questions. Then we sat in silence as I continued to pump the gas. When I was done, I gave her my contact information and offered to pray. I invited her to church and shared that she was welcome anytime. If anything, I wanted to reassure her she wasn’t alone and that someone did care about her. Though I may not have the full resources to help, I know who does and places I can send her for help.

As I drove off I reflected on the tugged whisper to see her. I have learned that you have to train yourself to see people. Life is busy, and it’s very easy for our lives to turn inwardly to ourselves and not have time or eyes to see the needs of those around us. Needs can simply mean a friendly smile for that human connection. Then, the more you do it, the more you see them. It’s like when you buy a new car, all of a sudden, you see them on the road all the time; you have trained your eye to see them through the association of owning one. I have trained my eyes to see people through the association of being seen by a Savior when I was lost.

I have learned to just keep deciding to see people. I had to practice seeing people and the more I did it the more I saw people. I’m not great at it, I am rude to others at times, but I try hard to see all people as people and treat them as seen and valuable in my small encounters. The more I practice, the more naturally it comes to me.

There are many people roaming past you on a daily basis who feel let down, beaten, conspired against, betrayed, lost, afraid, and isolated. It’s important to learn to see people where they are. There’s something about the moments when we see the broken pregnant girls alone in their car, where the power of the everyday is elevated and illuminated. The power of the every day is generated when we take the time to stop and see others. Rise or fall, sink or swim, we are all tied together, and we shift and move each other by the actions we choose to take.