I nearly missed being home for Christmas this year! I spent three days last week in the hospital. It started with a three-hour wait in the emergency room. I felt I needed help since I had been vomiting uncontrollably (how do you control vomit?). My tummy was not enjoying a night at the opera. Then I looked across the room and saw a young man sitting with his wife, holding a bucket on his lap and his face in the bucket. I had a bucket too but mine was still unused. I now didn’t feel so bad (pardon me for being so insensitive, but it was true. Anytime you want to feel better you look for someone worse off).
I felt out of control, like so many times before. That’s saying something for someone who is used to taking care of EVERYBODY ELSE. It’s not that I felt better than others, I just believed I had to take care of them. It’s called being co-dependent, and it sucks! Sometimes the person who appears to be most in control is least in control. That’s another story for another time.
Melody Beattie, world-renown author and codependent, had a great story in her classic work, CODEPENDENT NO MORE. She describes a story about some young men who decided to trick an old hermit. He lived up in a mountain cave. The boys reached his place, and one guy grabbed this small bird. He said, "I have an idea to use on this wise hermit.” As they entered, the old man greeted them. He asked, “Is there something I can help you with?” The boy stepped forward, put out his hand, and said, “I have this little bird in my hand. Tell me, old man, is the bird alive or dead (If he said alive he would crush it). The hermit looked him in the eye and said, “That is up to you.”
We have a choice to hold on or let go of our control.Mary, as in Mary and Joseph, must
have felt out of control. How would you feel if you were a teenage
virgin girl who was visited by an angel and told you were going to
get pregnant? On top of that, Joseph wasn’t going to be the
father. The father was going to be...well...God! Try explaining
that to your folks. Mary did the right thing, SHE TOOK HER HANDS
OFF. At such a young age she learned to let God have control. That
must have been so freeing for her.
You don't have to be codependent to want to control things. Life can go sideways on us and we try to control the circumstances and outcomes. There may be estrangement in the family; job loss; health issues; political problems, etc. God's Christmas message is "Take your hands off." We need to trust Him even when He doesn't make sense, and that happens often.
Are you tired of trying to do it all, to keep all the plates spinning in the air at the same time? As a child, I tried to protect my Mom and brother. It didn’t stop there. I soon began to take on the world. It reminds me of that great post-reformation preacher, John Wesley, who said, “The world is my Parrish.” Wesley and I had something in common, we both took on too much. How about you? Maybe it's time to "Let go and let God."
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