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When Life just doesn’t Follow the Plan

Good morning friends! Little update: this last month has been INSANE for me. I started my final semester of college. I have been clinical teaching for the past 5 weeks. We had a last push to finish the house we’ve been building so we could move in before our apartment lease was up. And we moved. The last three weeks have been a whirlwind of trying really hard to develop to a new normal.

That’s really what I want to address in this blog. Sometimes, life just throws you for a loop. My sanity has been tested in more ways than one in the last few weeks. I promised my self when I started this blog that I would post one a week, so I worked hard before the move to have four or five blogs scheduled to go out so I didn’t have to touch them during this crazy season. But last week, I just didn’t have time. And sometimes that happens.

So this week I want to give us permission. If you’ve ever heard of the Enneagram, I am an Enneagram Type 1. I am a gold on the color test; a Type A personality if there was ever a Type A personality. If that is all Greek to you, here’s what that means in plain English. I am an obsessive planner. I hate, hate, HATE when people mess with my schedule. I don’t like surprises, outside of romantic ones. I don’t like people even who just go through life like its all hunky-dory and meant for their pleasure. Structure and order are to me symbols of Godliness. They provide life with a certain predictability, with a way to put it in a nice, neat little box with no surprises. (P.S. It’s the people who turn my box into a Jack-in-the-box that drive me up the wall.)

So, my personality is uber-structured and no fun, and that can be fine and dandy in certain situations. But when life decides to go crazy, the shortfalls of my personality really begin to shine through. I struggle with not being in control of my day- with feeling like the day owns me instead of me owning my day. I can last a few days, but eventually I will have a full emotional breakdown.

One of the big things I have had to face in the last several weeks is that I am not in control, and that’s okay. I have had to give myself permission to just not have it all together yet. I have had to let go of a certain amount of control.

So for those of you who give yourself grief when the dishes just didn’t get done today, it’s okay. Life will keep going. Yes, you may feel out of control, but guess what, you’re not in control anyway. My incessant planning is a way of providing me an illusion of control. It allows me to have some semblance of order in a chaotic world. But, in reality, the amount of our world we actually control is so small.

Weeks like this can be a good reminder not only of the fact that we are not in control, but of who is in control. A lot of my coping in the last few weeks has been to just breathe deep, get some space and remember who is actually in control. This is a season, and seasons come and go. Life happens, and the strongest people are those who are roll with the punches.

So go out there and roll with the punches, my friends! Have a great week!

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