I'm listening but...

what if I don't like what I hear?

My focus for this year is the word "listen". God impressed something on me recently and, although it wasn't the most pleasant revelation ever, I was listening. It had been an unusually frustrating night with kids. The kind when I yell at the kids for no good reason (not that there is ever a good reason). The kind that I end up in tears during our bedtime Bible and prayer time. The kind where I want to self-medicate with an episode of The Bachelor.

After they were asleep. I opened up my Bible and journal and just sat. Dazed, drained, and dejected by the events of the evening. As I processed what was troubling me and opened my heart up, this is what I "heard"...

Miss, you are a control freak. What? I would never have described myself this way before. That term is reserved for type A personalities. Or anal-types who have all their ducks in a row. Or people who actually move furniture to vacuum and remember to wash their baseboards. Or people who tell you what you have to order at a restaurant. Sorry if I have offended anyone. It's just this has been my definition of a control freak in the past. I'm not like that.

I'm worse.

I'm worse because I'm a control freak who doesn't think she is a control freak. And I'm worse because what I want to control isn't things, it's people. I want people to feel the way I want them to feel. I want them to respond the way I think they should respond. I want them to say things that my ears would like to hear. The place it most often plays out, like most things in life, is right here at home.

This is why parenting can be such a struggle for me. I want to control my kids. I want them to obey with a right heart, love each other, have good attitudes, tell the truth and follow Jesus fully their whole lives. But I cannot control ANY of this. They are people with their own wills, desires and emotions. Strong wills, intense desires and big ol' emotions. Sure I have a responsibility to train and nurture them. To focus my reactions and instruction on their hearts, not just their outward behavior. But I can't determine who they we be or what path they will walk down.

So what can this control freak do? Really, I'm asking you. All I know is that I belong to the One who really does have control and He is good. He can change hearts. My kids as well as my own. I want to submit to Him. Well I guess I don't always want to. But I know he is worthy of my trust and worthy of my whole life. I know I can pray to Him about all the things I can't control. And I know when I find myself in "control freak mode" yet again, I can fall on His grace. But other than that, I'm kind of at a loss.

On a lighter note...I listened to someone else today: our dog Ruby, otherwise known as the Hairy Beast. Last night she kept standing in the dining room near the front window of the house whining. Good pet owner that I am, I ignored her. But she continued this morning and it was driving me bonkers. I wondered if she was missing the family that she stayed with over the weekend. That hurt my feelings, so I searched for another reason for the whining. Well I found it. I opened a little drawer in a side table and there lay 3 mini corn dogs. Seriously? This is my life.

Good thing I listened to the Hairy Beast.