The lie we tell ourselves: We are in control.

I like to be the the captain of my own ship.  I like to know the charted course, to see the plan on the horizon.  Don't get me wrong, I love change and variety.  But in terms of how things are going to go, what's just around the corner...I like to be able to anticipate those things.  Marriage, work, kids, you name it, I've worked through the scenarios and have all sorts of outcomes mapped.  It's called Type A, I know it.  I own it.  I'm not laid back, as much as I'd like to be able to say that I am a roll with the punches kind of girl, I am not.  I'm always thinking, always watching; trying to keep out ahead the of chaos and churn of life.  I know it's impossible, but I still try.

Five years ago I thought I had life figured out.  It was all moving along nicely.  No surprises, no unknowns and then on one crisp fall day in September, my mom called to tell me my step dad was ill.  A man who had never been chronically sick a day in his life was facing heart valve replacement.  That in and of itself didn't bother me much.  Six weeks later, he needed two more valves replaced.  I remember the day I got that call.  I fell to my knees after I hung up the phone, I hit my fist to the floor.  I knew, I absolutely knew, it was out of our control.  Back to back open heart surgeries, triple valve replacement, months in the ICU and what felt like years of worry ended for him the following March, when he finally found himself no longer suffering and fighting for life.

The thing about life: we think we have it under control.  That we can influence whatever comes our way and that our "current state" will be forever.    In six months a man went from being the picture of health (during his annual physicals he was always asked if he was a marathon runner in training) to laying on his death bed.  None of us saw that coming.  We thought we had more time, more chances to go fishing, more moments to spend with the grandkids, more cold Hershey's bars for a snack.  Because we think we have control, we take life for granted.  We don't want to talk about dying.  We consider it morbid to talk about death.  We refuse to discuss our wishes with family, because who wants to be the fun sucker?  Who wants to admit they're only mortal?  After all, in this world we live in, we have everything we want right at our finger tips.  We can watch everything on TV immediately.  We can order almost anything and get free two day shipping.  We can stop signs of aging with modern medicine.  If we have something that gets old and worn, we can quickly get the new in.  And we fool ourselves into thinking the same holds true for our bodies.  That with enough immediate gratification and demands for a 'fix' we won't die. If we get sick or hurt, we will just keep pushing through all there is in medicine until we find the right fix.  We expect it, just like we expect our laptop to come back to life when IT shows up.  There's a patch for everything, there's science and logic for it all.  We've fooled ourselves in believing that we can do anything.

Five months ago, the course I was charting stopped.  From September 24, 2017 until mid December I did something I've never done. I stopped looking ahead.  I prayed everyday for just one more moment.  Days ran together, September feels like it just ran right into Thanksgiving...I don't really remember much from the fall.   On September 24, after church on a Sunday morning, I got a call that made the world stop for a second.  There'd been an accident, an explosion.  No one really knew what had happened.  No one knew exactly where the victims had been taken, or how badly they were hurt.  I remember exactly where I was, there at the my kitchen window.  I remember focusing in on only one thing, finding my mother.  I didn't even worry if she was dead or alive. I just had to find her.  I knew she'd been life flighted from the scene, and I had enough medical background to know that meant her condition was likely fragile.  It felt like a needle in a haystack kind of search for a few hours.  I didn't hit my knees or throw down my fist in frustration this time.  It wasn't that kind of slow build like it had been with my step dad.  It was pure shock.  Complete auto pilot mode.  I threw clothing into my luggage, not even knowing what to pack and planned with my husband that he could bring funeral clothes later if need be.  I was so engrossed in getting there, that it wasn't until I got 20 miles down the road and stopped to get gas that I realized I had left my wallet at home.  I had packed, jumped in my car and left for a 700 mile one way trip - without my wallet.  Auto pilot.  I tell you all this so you can grasp how it feels to have the rug yanked out from under you.  It's not like finding out your loved one's body is shutting down after a long battle with disease.  It's not like sitting with your grandfather as he takes his last grasps of air.  It's not grief like that.  Losing someone is always sad, it's hard and it's lonely.  But an accident is like jumping off a cliff.  The path is there one minute and it's completely gone, with nothing but thin air holding you up, the next.  Surreal is the best way I can describe it, you feel like your'e in a dream, and you know you're not going to wake up to everything like it once was.  A long disease progression is like slowly walking down into the valley.  You're still at the bottom, low and sad, but you wound your way down to that.  You ground it out.  There's no grinding it out with an accident, you're too busy trying to scramble and get your mind caught up to the reality.  When that jolt in reality happened to me, it forced me to shift my outlook.  

I could not make my mother better, heck for the first few hours I couldn't even find her.  There wasn't anything to control, there was nothing I could plan out.  Every single thing in this material world was stripped away and rendered useless in that moment.  And the only thing I had to cling to was my faith in God.  We lived by the hours.  My sleep patterns became nonexistent - I thought I was sleep deprived when I had babies, this took it up a notch.  My brothers and I simply sat and waited, not for modern medicine to take hold, but for fate to play out.  Yes, medical doctors and nurses saved my mothers life.  First responders made a valiant effort to help her in a great time of need, but the ultimate lesson in all this is not how we controlled the outcome.  My mother is not a burn survivor with 65%+ of her body burnt because of anything we did.  She's a walking miracle because of her strong will to live and her rock solid foundation in her relationship with Christ.  We stayed strong because of the power of prayer and the unwavering commitment of our fellow family, friends and greater community.  During those first few weeks of the explosion I don't think my brothers and I would tell you that we prayed for our mom to live.  We prayed for whatever would happen to be the best thing for our mother; ah yes the realization that you are not in control.  Behold the power of prayer.  Behold the power of unwavering love. It's not the the prayer that is powerful, it's not the ask that makes the difference.  But when you are at your darkest moments, nothing is more uplifting and motivating than knowing that everyone is rooting for you, including the big guy upstairs.

I've talked about trusting others, but I also learned that as much as you trust in others, you also must learn to cling to your faith and know that no matter the outcome, you are not in control. Does this mean I'm still not planning away...ummm...no.  I'm as Type A as ever, just a little more aware and empathetic when it all comes crashing down.