People are protesting the shutdowns because they want to be in control. In no way am I going to judge someone when I have my own life to control. During this pandemic, it is clear that most people want a life that is in control. Once life becomes out of control, we struggle. I struggle when life is not exactly how it should be, and I am a person who loves change, but I love change when I am in control of it. It’s when I am not in control of the changes that I have to have trust. During this pandemic, I have had to trust doctors, nurses, and my administrators at my school, so I can continue to work. I have had to trust people that I know and others that I don’t know, which is why I would rather have life in control.
On social media, so many people are judging others for their actions, thoughts, and words. I wonder if their lives are in complete control or completely out of control, and before they lose their minds, they have to control the thoughts, actions, and words of others. I have lived my whole life with the wisdom of my mother that you never know what someone is going through until you walk in their shoes. Maybe, just maybe, we all could begin to trust one another to put our lives back in control.
I have to trust doctors that I cannot see face to face. My Mom has to have a small surgery to get a passageway clear in her throat so she can swallow and intake food. It’s not an emergency surgery; it’s an elective surgery. She’s fine, but we have been back and forth to the hospital and getting all kinds of information from all kinds of doctors, which is why I now understand why the information about this coronavirus is all over the place. I want to be in control. I think I’ll become a doctor.
Teaching online is difficult because I have to change my lesson plans and try to keep the students engaged without knowing if they really are engaged or if they are on social media the entire time during class. I teach high school. You can guess which one they are doing. My super extroverted students are great participants. The others, not so much. Tik-Tok is much more their style. I want control back in my classroom. I think I’ll become a social media star and post videos on Tik-Tok.
All of the changes we are enduring creates situations that are out of our control. As a person who claims to love change, I don’t. I like to make calculated changes. I don’t like change to happen to me, but that is exactly how life works. Life does not always allow us to only make calculated changes. I cannot become a social media star nor a doctor. I have to change and let go of having to be in control of everything and everyone. I don’t want to do that. I have to do that.
We want life to go back to the way it was because we want to be in control of our lives again. Instead, we have an upset apple cart, and we don’t even know when or how to pick up the apples, or if we should even touch them. This last week, I have read accounts from the Bible to trust in God when life is out of control. I wasn’t looking for these accounts; they were just the next ones in a study I am doing. I want to be in control. I have to give control over to God, and it is difficult.
In the past few years, I’ve noticed that when people’s lives are out of control, they want to control others, so that they have control over something. That way, they do not have to focus on the chaos that is out of control in their own lives. I know because I do it too. I say, “Believe what you want and think what you want,” because I don’t want people to control my thoughts and beliefs, but the reality is no one can do that unless I allow them to do that. I do have control. We all do.
We can all control our response to situations. We can control our response to what people say to us. We can control what we say, but even the Bible admits in James, that no one can control his or her tongue. We have control, but we refuse to use it. I am going to try to control what I can during this time and not fret over what I cannot control.
I can control what I do with the time I have. I can control my attitude. I can control my comments on social media. I can try to control what I say. I have to let God control some of my circumstances. I have to control my response to them. I know this. It’s not easy, but anything worth doing is not easy. It’s not easy, but it is one way I can have trust, peace, and a bit of normalcy in this time in our history when life is not normal. Life may be out of control, but I do not have to be out of control. I must trust God, people, and my responses. It’s all any of us can do.
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