A Need for a Little Transparency

If y'all will allow me, I feel the need to be a little transparent and share something with you. I can't really explain why I'm sharing all of this other than that I'm supposed to. I admit that I can be wordy at times, but I'll do my best to keep it simple. So, here goes. I have two confessions to make before I really get into the "meat" of what I want to say.

First of all, I enjoy blog surfing. That's right! During occasional free moments or during those times when I just feel like escaping to someone else's world, I will get on fellow friends' blogs and look at the blogs of people they know and then the blogs of people those people know and so on. I find it so interesting and definitely recommend it. Some would call it blog stalking...I just like to think I'm getting to know a variety of people. Hehehe.... Anyway, when I am getting to know these new "friends," I often find some very interesting posts, and recently, I have found a very interesting post that I want to share with all of you. At least, I will share it with you after I share my next confession.

What is that next confession, you might ask? Well, I am a control freak. One of my greatest struggles is to let go of control that I so often want to grasp onto. I won't belabor much about this or go into very much detail, but during several times in my life, it has seemed to me that my life was slowly beginning to spin out of control, so in response, I grasped onto anything and everything that I could control. I think so many of us do it without really realizing it, because as a matter of fact, we don't control our lives. Someone with far more omniscience and omnipotence controls it, and so often, we forget that God is in control, and we think we are. Anyway, I am slowly making progress with my issues of control and am learning to recognize when I am trying to control things.

I came across this post I am sharing with you during some of my blog stalking...I mean, surfing....and wanted to share it with you. I am removing some of the personal stories from it, but I just had to leave the first story about the hand gel. I was laughing so hard that I was crying when I was reading it, so I just had to leave that personal story in there. I'm not sharing the author of the story, because I just really want you to concentrate on reading the story. Y'all can feel free to do the same with me if I ever write anything as eloquent or beautiful as this....my writings are not copyrighted, and you don't have to share me as the author. Hehehe.... The person who wrote this has an amazing personal story that goes along with this, but I feel it's more important to make your own story when reading this. Because, I think all of us have control/fear issues to some degree. Hope you enjoy this post as much as I did, and I hope you can identify some of your "hand gels." :o)

My in-laws are wonderful people. Not long ago, the family went out to this local Mexican spot to grab some dinner. The whole group was there: my husband, his parents, his sister, and her 2 little girls. As is routine in restaurants, we got seated, the waiter took our drink order, and then made his way back to take the meal order. Then, as is routine with my in-laws, my mother-in-law pulls her purse into her lap and begins to search for it. My father-in-law is looking, in anxious anticipation of it. It is of vital importance to their dining experience, and I have never seen them eat without it. Then, she finds it and sets it as a centerpiece on the table. The travel size bottle of anti-bacterial hand gel, claiming to kill up to 99.9% of germs. She coats herself with it, then he coats himself with it, and they attempt to get everyone at the table to coat themselves with it. There truly is nothing like the aromas of alcohol and sizzling fajitas colliding together. I politely decline.

I can only speculate on how the restaurant gel routine came about. Maybe my father-in-law saw a very convicing commercial, or possibly, my mother-in-law had a friend tell her of the preventative powers of the gel. Regardless of how they got there, they have their gel. I guess we all have our gel - something that makes us feel better about the inevitable "germs" that are out there in the world. I would venture to say that for most, the deep-rooted issue of the "gel" is one of fear intermingled with control. We fear something, something we don't like or would be unpleasant for us, and that fear leads us to think we just have to control the situation to make it right or clean or safe or healthy or better. It's sort of like when we learned about "if-then" clauses in grade school. If I put on this hand gel, then I will not eat germs. If I have a net on a trampoline, then I can bounce and not get hurt. If we pass laws against abortion and homosexuality, then the country will be morally "safe." If I eat right and exercise, then I will not get cancer. If I study and search enough, then I have it all figured out.

I have no problem with any of those things. They are wonderful things: safety nets, hand gels, healthy lifestyle, and knowledge. Laws speak of responsibility and stewardship, both of which I am a huge fan of and both of which honor God. My issue is not with the "if's" but with the "then's." We have this tendency in our western, comfortable culture to hang our hat on those "then's." Everyone feels above them: the harm, hurt, accidents, pain, sickness, death, and all the things that are a part of our mortal lives and the fallen world in which we live. We feel about it all, because when the feear of those things creep in, we go into super control mode. More hand gel! Taller nets! A newer vitamin! Harder helmets! I can control this fear! I can make my world safe!

The truth is that the Creator of us, of the universe, of all that we are and see and experience is the only One in control. He is the only One that redeemed what went wrong in the garden on the cross. He, not us, is the only One that sees past the momentary "unsafety" and hurt to the character being built in us in adversity. We can not make all things right or safe and believe a lie when we think we can. Only One can...and does.

I am no expert on the matter, and in fact, more times than I'd prefer, I give into that sneakly lie. Thinking we can do enough to be safe and do enough for our kids to keep them safe is simply a myth. Only One holds our days in His hands. "For YOU have delivered my soul from death, indeed my feet from stumbling, so that I may walk before God in the light of the living." Psalm 56:13

Wow! I hope that spoke to you as much as it did to me.