Control

I received a bit of news this morning about someone I dearly love (no, it's not Boydee! Whew!). My heart literally dropped, then started pounding so hard out of sheer frustration and exasperation. Another boo boo committed, as if we haven't learned enough, as if we haven't seen enough. I couldn't understand how it could happen again. There goes another complicated life.

Sometimes I so wish I could control the actions or the choices of loved ones... just so they live their life right, so they live their life according to God's laws. I wish the wrong choices that have been made are reversible, or as in a book, editable; that one wrong decision can be corrected by perhaps a good one, or that it can be erased. But life isn't that way. Reality is what it is, sometimes good, sometimes overly complicated.

If we take life too seriously, especially the problems that sometimes really aren't our own but of someone dear to us, we still carry it in our hearts. The heaviness, the pain, the anxiety, even if we really aren't directly affected. Our hearts are connected... by friendship, by blood, by ties. It is a good thing to feel empathy towards someone but if it only also stirs feelings of frustration and hurt over that person, then we're better off not 'feeling' too much.

When I was a child, I'd hold counseling sessions with our helpers in the dirty kitchen. They'd tell me their problems and I'd tell them what to do. As a child, my views were black and white, right or wrong. No grays, no in betweens. It was simpler. I wanted to be a counselor after those mini sessions, feeling I'd always have the answers to everything, confident they'd always take my advice, so sure their lives turned for the better because of it. At that age, problems were petty, not life changing. In my little world, I had control over it.

Now, my world has grown wider, bigger; and the problems graver and may be life changing. And I am no longer in control. At least not of the lives of my loved ones. I can only control my life - my thoughts, my attitude. Everything outside it is beyond me. I can only control how I react to things, to news. I've had my heart hurt a couple of times. I've had frustrations over things or people beyond my control. Just this bit of news this morning was one deep frustration. I can only trust God that He allowed it to happen and that there will always be good that will come out of this, no matter how dim it may seem. And I always have to remind myself that there are so many things, really, that are beyond my control. Just let go and let God!