Am I Ever in Control?

The past four years of my life have not been easy. Going to a seminary wasn't what I had in mind when I got my BA in Psychology. I was never a very "religious" person. I thought that only super-Jesus-lovers went to seminary, and I never did the whole Jesus thing very well as a young person. I didn't get it. I saw God as harsh and unloving, so Jesus only increased my fears of being inadequate, of being weak, and of being unloveable.

I guess I was always spiritual, deep down, in-tune with my own experience of the world and that of others. I just didn't know that that was what it was when I was fifteen. And when I found God at twenty-one, I wasn't thinking I'd suddenly become a different person. But somehow, in a moment, I began to care very deeply about what God thought. I wanted to do exactly what God wanted me to do, every single minute of the day.

But that was an immature faith. God doesn't work that way at all. Relinquishing control over my life didn't make my life better. I still don't know the difference between being lazy and giving my troubles to God, or if there is ever a time when that exists, when we can have control over our own lives. I don't know when the power of choice ends and the power of God begins. I know very little. But I know that God is good, and that in the midst of great pain, God is with us. That I know for sure.