Control Freak in Chaos

Now I don’t get to hear the news all around me like you do:  on the radio, on TV, overhearing others talking… so my perspective is limited.  I just log onto FoxNews a couple times a week to see if anything big is going on (although I figure someone will tell me if something really big happens). 

So I got up the other morning, sat down with my breakfast as Asher was still snoozing.  I turned my computer on, pulled up FoxNews, and the main story was this:  “Breaking News:  Obama swatted a fly during a press conference.”

And this makes me wonder why I ever log on.  Maybe 24/7 news isn’t such a good idea after all.  I’m just saying.

A few years ago Jonathan and I sold our house and moved into an RV.  Sold a house.  Moved into an RV.

I

was

so

sad.

I never even realized I’d react that way.  I didn’t think I had a “hold” on my house.  And I didn’t really.  It was my home.  And I loved my home.  I loved keeping it in order and relaxing in it. 

On the flip side I hated being so weird.  I lived in an RV!  People were always inviting us to stay with them a night or two out of sympathy for crying out loud!  You’d think we would have felt comforted by our RV neighbors but OH NO they had those big motorhomes.  That’s a whole different thing from our little pull behind thingy that we didn’t even have a vehicle able to pull. 

Now, years later, it seems so trivial.  I met a lady in the blogosphere who is in the midst of selling her home to be an overseas missionary.  That made me look back and realize as hard as that step was, it’s not really that great a loss (not in the long run that is). 

I do have a home again and granted it’s not as nice as our little house in Matthews but I have still made it our home.  Some friends of ours commented to us the other night that we have made great strides to settling in here saying that that others have been here years and haven’t done half of what we’ve managed to do.  But that’s because our home being a home is of huge value to us.  Huge! 

No matter what else is going on here if I can feel comfortable in my own house then I’ve accomplished something.  I’ll look out at the flowers, watch the dogs, or bring in a little harvest from the garden and feel comforted and happy.  It’s truly a gift from God that this far away from home I can still feel at home.

After watching the coverage of the election in Iran I am so, so thankful that we live in a politically stable environment.  I am also thankful that America is a politically stable country.  We don’t get shot in the face if we oppose the winner of the election.  That’s comforting when you see what’s happening in Iran.  What a scary place to live!!

When did I think I had free time?  Or did I think I was going to have free time eventually?  All I know is that my days fly by and get away from me before I know it.  All in a good way though.  I hate sitting around bored.  Fortunately for me I never get the chance to do that. 

Sometimes I ask why, of all people, I got a high-energy child.  Maybe this is why.  Not because I can keep up with him physically but just that it provides challenge in my life and since I love progress it’s always fun to watch what new thing he is learning.  I look back on just a week or two ago and he seemed so different!  He’s changing and growing and learning so much, so fast! 

I do want to spend a little time reading each day but right now that’s just not happening.  And anyway, when I do sit down to read, Asher’s little radar goes off and I am all of the sudden under attack.  Why this is I have no clue.  Actually I do know.  I seem available to him.  It’s sweet really because one day he won’t want to play with mommy so I better cherish these moments now that they’re happening!!

So far we’ve cut out high fructose corn syrup, refined flour, sweets, and sugar.  This week I will add bread and pasta.  The next week, rice and potatoes will have to go.  Then the next we add the healthy stuff back in. 

I’ve done fine on this so far except that without the sugar and sweets I’ve gone to bread as a substitute so the next 2 weeks will probably be quite hard.  I hope I can stick with it.  Each week I thought I may not have the willpower to do it but I got through each week fine.  I really think these next 2 weeks will by far be the hardest because I’m taking out all the carb crutches.  At least I’m used to more fruit and veggies.  If I was trying to cut all this out at one time I don’t think I’d manage.

There were a couple days last week that when I hit a rough spot in life I felt like I wanted, needed, and deserved something sweet.  That makes me wonder what/who I’m going to for comfort.  Seems to me I’m running to my man-made god (i.e. my idol) instead of my God.  This may be a couple weeks of intense growing for me if I go the distance!

On Sunday, I listened to this great sermon series on “Emotions that Destroy” by Chip Ingram (www.lote.org). 

He suggested using the ABC method when you feel yourself getting angry.

A - Admit your anger

B - Backtrack

     Since anger is a secondary emotion, look to see if it is one of three underlying emotions:

          Hurt (from a real or perceived unmet need)

          Frustration (from a real or perceived blocked goal)

          Insecurity (from a real or perceived personal attack)

C - Course of action

(You really have to listen to his series to get the full details of it all.  I highly recommend it!)

Since then I’ve been stopping when I feel anger begin and following the ABC method.  I find myself saying “blocked goal” almost every time.  And often.  Blocked goal, blocked goal, blocked goal.

This tells me two things:

1.  I have a lot of goals. 

2.  These goals are important to me. 

So I asked myself why.  The answer (as is the answer to a lot of my questions) was CONTROL.  I want to control my environment, surroundings, and the events of my day. 

Now that leads me to the question, “Why is control so important to me?”  And to that I don’t have the answer.  I just don’t know.  And now I want some sort of magic formula to follow where I just don’t care about control anymore.  But I think instead it’s just going to take a lot of hard work.  A slow process. 

The only counter-actions I can think of are:

1.  Let go of my goals (i.e. expectations)

2.  When things don’t go as I expect, relax and trust that God is in control

It’s a journey and instead of buying a self-help book I’m resting in God and letting Him show me the way.

I got the basis for this recipe online then did lots of tweaking until it ended up quite different.  I was looking for something to do with ground beef (besides my usual) and this is what I came up with.  I doubled the recipe so this makes A LOT of soup (great for freezing some).  I used fresh veggies so I didn’t do a ton of measuring but I’ll try to get close.  (Honestly does it really matter if there was 1 or 2 cups of green beans?)  Onto the recipe.

Ingredients:

1 onion (I used onion salt because I don’t do onions.  How much onion salt?  Whatever kind of looked - and eventually tasted - right.)

1 medium cabbage cored and chopped

10 small to medium tomatoes - diced  (or use a can or two if you have it available)

4 sweet potatoes

4 carrots

1 tsp thyme

1 can corn

1-2 cups green beans

1 lb ground beef

3 beef bullion cubes  (you can use broth instead)

lots of water until it was the kind of soup I wanted

Directions:

brown the ground beef in a skillet, drain, set aside

(here’s where if you were using a real onion you would cook it in a bit of olive oil before adding it to the beef)

mix together:  beef, onion, cabbage, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, corn, green beans, thyme (um is that all of the remaining ingredients?  the recipe I used at first had you split all this up, adding different vegetables at different points of cooking, but I just dumped it all in there together and it turned out fine!  the easier the better i say.)

add bullion and water (and/or broth)

bring to a boil, reduce heat and cook for 35-45 minutew

this is when i tasted it and tweaked it a bit by adjusting the spices some (mainly i added too much thyme so i won’t be doing that again!)

There you go!  I say this is pretty healthy.  Both of my boys like it a lot so it’s a keeper!

So I took this silly little quiz on Facebook:  “Which TV Mom are You?”  My result was June Cleaver and the explanation was that I am a “blissfully happy, dedicated stay-at-home-mom”. 

My reaction was, “Yeah right.  I’ve been struggling with feeling useless lately.  That doesn’t sound blissfully happy to me.”

But over the next few days as I went about my duties every once in a while that quiz would come back to my mind.  I started thinking, “Well I really am dedicated to this.  You know I really am happy to have this job.  I do love what I do.  Hmmm.  I guess I am a blissfully happy, dedicated stay-at-home-mom.  Who knew!?” 

Just that little bit of encouragement - a silly quiz - was all I needed to hold my head up a bit higher and smile a bit more.  It’s so easy to criticize and pick out what is wrong but it’s so much more effective (and pleasant) to tell people what they’re doing right.  And that little bit of encouragement may be what they need to believe in themselves a bit more.  Definitely something I need to practice more.

The other day in my prayer time (aka Asher’s naptime) I came across this verse:

“Do everything without complaining or arguing”  Philippians 2:14

That’s a verse you’d think about memorizing.  I should memorize it.  The problem is I can’t get it out of my head!  Everytime I’m tempted to complain, grumble, mumble, look at the negative, look at what I don’t have instead of what I do have, look at what I don’t have instead of what I do have…that verse pops into my head!  It’s so clear.  There’s just no getting around it.  And that’s all I have to say about that.

I wrote this whole post on feeling useless but then I thought back on it and remembered going through these cycles when I worked too.  I don’t know if I’m expecting to make some huge impact on the world on a daily basis or what.  My emotions would say that’s what I’m supposed to do.  I know for sure that’s not reality.  I guess it boils down to just hoping you’re here for a purpose and that your life matters.  If we evaluate these things with our own eyes I think we’ll continuously come short - especially in our culture of productivity.  (I find I am happier with my life the more productive I am.  Surely there are better virtues to aspire to!)  But if we see could see things from God’s perspective I bet some of our victories we wouldn’t say were as victorious as we felt and some of our failures probably weren’t as disasterous as we thought.  Our heart is decietful and our emotions lie.  This is when I have to press forward seeking first His kingdom and His righteousness and trusting Him to add “all these things” to me.  Now to remember this the next time I’m wondering if I matter!