A Control Freak Comes to Terms

I love to be in control. I crave it. I panic when I am not in charge. Most of my adult life, I have arranged things in order to maintain that precious control. In the past few years, I have been challenged to reliquish control. My journey through infertility has taught me that there are many things, small and large, that are beyond my ability to manage. At first I responded to this challenge with anger and resentment, I deserved to be a mother, I was being cheated, and I would make it happen or take everyone down with me.

It is embarrasing to admit to being so selfish and self serving. My poor husband who spent a year married to that angry and selfish woman. A year wondering why he wasn't enough for me and if I would ever be happy to "just" be married to him.  He held me, cried with me, encouraged me, and best of all, love me right were I was without asking me to change, or even calling me out for being the selfish and petulant woman I was.

It was this incredible love, offered so freely by my amazing husband that reminded that I was blessed with a gift of even more incredible and amazing love. A love that I had rejected and spurned for almost a decade. When I was 18, I became very angry with God because the boy I thought I was supposed to marry became the boy who broke my heart. This was one too many insults for my foolish heart and I decided that if God wasn't going to give me what I wanted that I would go forth and make my way without him.

I set myself up for a tulmotous time of struggle, but even in the midst of blatant rebellion God was with me. He provided with the gift of best friend who would be a voice of reason in the wilderness. Word of his love was whispered in the prayer of my Grandmother and offered as a consolation in the last weeks of my Grandfather's life.  It was demonstrated in the constant and paitent love of my Mother and presented in the plan of my life that unfolded before me.

It took not being able to be a Mother, and the incredible love of my husband, for me to return to a Savior who never left. I am thankful everyday that that boy broke my heart and I was required to wait for my husband.  In the past six months, I have learned that when I sit back and give up control, amazing peace can come. I am once again on the path to motherhood, this time through adoption. I know that whether it takes six months or a lifetime, my child is out there. More importantly I know that there is plan greater and more perfect than anything I could imagine. This blog is my journey through that lesson.

I still struggle with control. Somedays I can give it all up, and others I hold tight to it, afraid to let go. I remind myself of Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans have for you" declares the Lord "Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." One little step at a time.