Articles

In September 2021, I was headed out west to meet up with my sister-in-law for a girls’ weekend. I rarely get to travel alone and was very much looking forward to navigating the fun game of flying solo—not having to keep track of anyone else and maybe getting some alone time to read that good book I had packed. 

I am a control freak! I was that mom who would fix her child’s preschool crafts to make them look better. The problem is, as life went on and my kids grew, I found that things became impossible to control. So what does a control freak who can’t control a situation do?

I grew up in a Catholic family, went to Catholic school, and had an aunt who was a nun. Sounds like I was religious, right? No! My parents didn’t go to church and they used to lie to my grandmother every Sunday about what mass they went to.

It’s not that I never think about God, but my primary motivation is too often not his will or his glory, but my own. On top of that, I often tend to depend on myself rather than recognizing my dependence on him.

Jerry Bridges asks us to “confront the sins we tolerate.” At first, I was overwhelmed thinking of how many “respectable sins” are tolerated in my life. Discontentment is a part of my daily routine, and pride and irritability show up to share my morning coffee.