I’m losing control and I don’t like it. Is it pride or is it fear? This is the question I was left with last night. I feel as if I’m losing control over my own job, but not just any job- a ministry that I started from scratch. I feel -at every turn- there are more things I’m asked to do, more things I have to do, and more parameters I’m trying to fit in. All the time, I wonder if I have any real say-so anymore.
So why does this bother me so much? The question rears its ugly head again- is it pride because I think only I can do what I do or fear in discovering that I may not be needed anymore. To fully answer this question I think the Lord will have to reveal my own heart to me, but at the edge of my heart the answer is fear.
For much of my life I have been defined by this truth- people like me for what I do for them. This is not a definition given to me by any one person, but it is at the core of how I see myself. I often times wonder if anyone likes me beyond what I can do for them. So fear bubbles up in me like lava in a volcano anytime I feel that my being needed is threatened.
Case in point- giving new people any type of ‘public’ role in what I see as my place gives me such anxiety that I don’t know whether to cry, run away, or fight back. My fear of not being needed is only outweighed by my fear of confrontation; fighting back isn’t even an option. I would cry but I’m not sure I have real tears left. My only option is to run away but that isn’t really an option either. I can’t afford to run away. So…I’m stuck.
This is where I am- stuck. In every sense of the word…caught, unable to find a solution, trapped. I feel as if I’m a prisoner in my own head…in my own life…and I don’t know how to get out.
Maybe this is what a mid-life crisis feels like. Maybe this is how my ex felt before he set himself free from our life. I’m the same- a prisoner who wants to be free. The difference is that I see nothing to be freed from- except myself.
The thing that makes me sadder than my imprisonment is this- in the past I would have found great comfort, hope, and joy in the Word. Somehow- if I’m being real- even that doesn’t seem to work, or it such a temporary salve to where I hurt that I’ve almost stopped going to that particular medicine cabinet.
But still, I try and I find in the deep recesses of my heart this verse from Galatians 5:1 – “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”
He has set me free. I believe this- not just in theory. I know it to be true, but yet I’m still left feeling trapped. My prison has an open door. Why can’t I find it?
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