June 27, 2006
Control
I am a very undisciplined person - always have been. When I was a freshman in high school, I got dropped from honors Biology because I couldn't be bothered to do my homework. My teacher even called me at HOME and told me that if I wanted to go back and do my assignments retroactively, she would give me partial credit and that would be enough to keep me in her class. I opted not to. The second semester of my senior in college, I took a ballet class pass/fail and though it was only 2 credit hours, I needed every credit hour in my schedule in order to graduate. For some reason I took some moral high ground (that was spurred by laziness) on doing written work ("I took this class to DANCE!") and even though I thought I had figured out the numbers in my head, my lack of written work earned me a failing grade. This meant I had to take summer school in order to get those two extra credit hours. I walked with the rest of my class in May, but my name was in the program with a big, fat asterisk next to it. My mom was thrilled with that, I assure you.
I have a workout calendar pinned to my bulletin board at work, and more often than not I look at it, shrug and go home instead. I like to do what I like to do, and it's very difficult for me to discipline myself to do life's unenjoyable, but necessary, tasks.
I think this is a fairly typical human condition, but most people, by adulthood anyway, have figured out this very obvious fact of life - sometimes you gotta do things you don't want to, but need to. Which is why I am still tot tally surprised that God has called me to do ANYthing. I'm not the good Christian who sits down every morning for her devotionals or who is diligent about keeping up with a prayer calendar or journal writing. When the mood strikes, sure. When I'm in need of something, absolutely. But I don't pray in a disciplined, regimented way. Of course I believe that it's good to be in a constant conversation with God, it's also good to let your will be bent. To let go of control. To stop being so stubborn and lazy. When we are broken, we are rebuilt. When we are stretched, we get stronger.
Those lessons are tough for me.
Last night someone asked me (in a random way) what I would do for a Klondike Bar and I said that I didn't like them. "Do you like ice cream?" he asked. Of course. "Do you like chocolate over vanilla ice cream?" Of course! "But you don't like Klondike Bars?" And I told him that I needed to have a handle, like a Drumstick or something of that ilk. "Oh," he replied. "It's a control thing."
And it socked me in the gut because it IS a control thing. I like to be in charge, even when I'm eating ice cream.
I don't like relinquishing - letting go gives me hives - and there have been many a battle of wills between me and my God over who is in charge of my life. I will always remember my twenties as a time when I fought with Him, sometimes to the death of parts of my sprit. And I can't adequately explain to you the peace and joy I feel now that I have given up fighting Him so hard. Of course I will always struggle - He made me this stubborn, this willful for a reason - but that struggle now has a context and a purpose. It's to grow me, to stretch me, to teach me that I don't know best and I certainly don't know everything. I know almost nothing.
"Sometimes I think of where it is I've come from
And the things I've left behind
But of all I've had, what I possessed
Nothing can quite compare
With what's in front of me "
Mountain of God - Third Day
Posted by hannah at 05:01 PM
