You, Lord, are all I have, and you give me all I need; my future is in your hands. How wonderful are your gifts to me; how good they are! I praise the Lord, because he guides me, and in the night my conscience warns me. I am always aware of the Lord's presence; he is near and nothing can shake me. Psalm 16:5-8 (GNT)
Recently, a friend and I were sharing about how chaotic life has become. I realized in talking to her how much I have changed. I used to be a planner. Now, don't get me wrong, I still plan but I used to plan everything. I was proud of the fact that I was super organized and that I could get a lot of stuff done because of it. This was my comfort zone. Everything was organized and everything went as planned (mostly).
Fast forward a few years. My life has taken twists and turns that have been unforeseeable and totally out of my control. You can obviously tell in the paragraph above that control was important to me and it was kept me comfortable. So you can also imagine how hard this was to deal with.
Have you ever been in this place? You want to control something but you can't so you pick something super ridiculous and hold fast. This happened to me when my husband brought home a new frying pan and I had a mini-fit. I am not proud of this and when I shared the story with my friend, she laughed and summed it up correctly when she said, "Elaine, that is just wrong." Thank God for good friends who can laugh with you at your ridiculous moments. I realized after my mini-fit that I wasn't really mad about the frying pan, I was still trying to hold on to some semblance of control. I went to my knees.
God has since been working on my heart. He is teaching me that the only person really in control is him. I am not in control and never will be. He is teaching me to have a new comfort zone. It has nothing to do with planning or controlling. It has everything to do with trust. Because I am learning to trust him, I can face a totally out-of-control, uncomfortable situation and go to my comfort zone. I talk to God, read my Bible and turn it over. I am learning to relax in his presence and in the knowledge that everything is under control.....just not my control. I am learning to love my new comfort zone. Instead of figuring out how to make it work the way I want, I can look to see how God is working it out.
I am still a work in progress but thank God, he's not finished with me yet!