I Really Want Control.

Aug. 23

In The 12 Week Year, a business and productivity book, the authors write, “If you are not in control of your time, then you are not in control of your results.”

I agree to an extent, and before I say anything else, I’ll say this book and productivity concept has been very helpful for me. But the authors clearly are not talking to moms. Because this is one of the greatest frustrations I’ve had in my 7.5 years of motherhood: I am not (entirely) in control of my time.

Sure, there is a great deal I am in control of. I can control how I use naptime. I can control the activities my kids engage in. I can control our calendar and our schedule and what I write down on our to-do list.

But I can’t control a baby who won’t nap. I can’t control the thunderstorm that wakes up my daughter, resulting in her climbing into my bed (and therefore kicking me a good chunk of the night). I can’t control the interruptions, the sibling fights I need to deal with, the large number of opinions in my house that take immense amounts of time and energy to manage.

I am not—and will never be be—entirely in control of my time. And it drives me crazy.

I want results. I want to control what everyone does at any given moment, because maybe then I can reach a desired outcome. It’s true that the way I choose to spend my and our family’s time does drastically affect us all in the long run. But it’s way messier than that simple equation. Sometimes I control the time, but don’t get the result. Sometimes I try to lasso my time, and it runs wild. We have a great deal of say over how we spend our time. But ultimately, we can never be completely in control of it.

Therein lies the source of so much of my parenting frustration.

And therein lies the source of so much of my sanctification.

God knew I wanted control. That’s what Adam and Eve wanted too. They didn’t want to rely on God. They didn’t want to trust him. They wanted to do things on their own, to rely on their own wisdom and knowledge, to have control in a way only God could—and should.

How often do I do the same? I want total control over my minutes and hours. I want control over what my kids do. I want control over my life and the lives of those living in my house. And God has given me the free will to steward or squander what I have.

But I wonder if some of us, while still practicing stewarding our time well, also need to practice surrendering it. Maybe some of us need to not try to grip harder for control, but instead learn to let it go.