Isaiah 1:1-9
Psalms 111, 112, 113, 146, and 147
2 Peter 3:1-10
Matthew 25:1-13
Hi.
My name is Susan, and I am a control freak. (Isn’t declaring this publicly the
first step toward recovery?) I will always take charge of the remote control, I
am a terrible backseat driver and inefficiencies that waste my time drive me
absolutely batty.
Last
weekend, I was kidnapped by my husband and taken to the Renaissance Festival
(way too much chain mail and turkey legs for my taste). On the way, we were
slowed by a traffic jam of mammoth proportions. On and on for miles and miles,
we crawled at two miles an hour, along with hundreds of cars filled with eager
Ren Fest visitors clad in anachronistic costumes ranging from the Middle Ages
to Star Trek.
Traffic
makes me insane. I have purposely arranged my career and home life over the
years in a way that specifically minimizes the amount of time I spend on the
road. Not only was I not looking forward to being accosted by former drama
majors with bad English accents, but now I was spending the day—a beautiful,
sunny, cool day—stuck on some side road in the middle of nowhere. (Is Pinehurst
the middle of nowhere?) After listening to my endless ranting, my better half
(much better half) said, “Susan, what are you really angry about?” And my
answer, distilled down to its core, was, “I’m angry because I have no control
over this traffic. I have no control. I’m stuck on this roadway, and the only
path is to move forward…slowly.”
I
remember last year being angry that Holy Spirit was going to go through such a
monumental change, over which I had zero control. We couldn’t go back; we could
only go forward. And going forward meant that, at times, I had to accept that I
couldn’t control situations. Instead, I had to relinquish control and put my
faith in God and in our Holy Spirit family. Today, I’ve never felt more
confident about our future. Letting go, trusting God and others was the right
path.
So
as we travel through the holiday season—full of its uncontrollable elements
(crazy relatives, mishaps at the mall, turkeys gone awry)—remember that it’s
okay to relinquish control. God’s got your back.
Susan Diemont-Conwell