When my life feels out of sorts and like I just can’t get a hold of things, kind of out of control, it becomes easy for me to become judgmental or to start trying to tell other people what they should do to improve their lives, in an effort to make myself “feel” better.

It sounds strange to say but I totally think it is true that when our lives feel out of control, we want to control something, so we look at other people’s live, especially our spouse or our children, and start telling them what they need to do. (I tend to do this when I do not want to address an issue or address my feelings/emotions related to something that is happening in my life.)

Maybe our life feels like it is spinning, and we cannot stop it, but we can easily look at someone else’s life and say, oh I know what you need to do to get better or to improve. We try to “fix” others or control or manipulate because it feels better in the moment than to deal with our own problem. It gives us some control when we feel out of control.

In our out of sort moments, we may wonder how did I get here. We were living in a good rhythm of life and then unexpected normal life things happened like a death or an accident or a tragedy and/or good things like the birth of a child or a new pet or new responsibilities or a move and we do the best we can to adjust along the way but at some point, in the process we feel overwhelmed. Then we start making ourselves feel bad for being where we are, we start thinking, I should be further along. We continue to pray and seek and read and listen for God but feel a void. We wonder, how do I get back to where I was before the incident.

We must practice self-compassion. We must recognize and acknowledge ourselves where we are. We must be honest with ourselves about where we are so we can figure out how to move forward well from here. Accepting our humanness. Admitting the hard. Adjusting to our new normal.

I must remind myself that I am doing the best I can. I am making decisions based on what I know to move forward well. I am here in this “new place” that feels different and hard to adjust to, but it does not mean anything has gone wrong. I must remind myself I am exactly where I am supposed to be. And I must remind myself that all shall be well. And all manner of things shall be well. I trust that God is in control.

These days I try to pay attention, practice awareness, when I begin to feel sort of out of sort. I get curious and ask myself some questions about what I need, what would be helpful. If we do not pay attention, we could end up someplace we do not expect to be whether good or bad.

We practice trusting and believing that God is in control of all things. We practice trusting and believing that He will equip, enable, and empower us in whatever situations or circumstances we face. We practice trusting and believing that God is working all things together for our good.

We practice holding our life loosely because there are unexpected things that happen. When we hold our life loosely we can begin to see the beauty in its unfolding story that we are co-authoring with God as we move through life whatever that looks like and whatever it offers.

As we trust and believe in God, He brings the peace and calm and balance back to us in our sort of out of sort moments and seasons. As we practice trusting and believing God and practicing self-compassion, we are less likely to try to control other people in our out of sort moments. As we practice trusting and believing God, we take responsibility for our life and how we show up in it. As we practice trusting and believing God, He expands our capacity to live more fully into our humanness.

We all have moments, even seasons, when our life feels out of our control. We must choose to trust and believe God is with us, and for us, and ahead of us, and working all things together for our good through all of it.

Keep TRUSTING! Keep seeking! Keep discovering God’s Way!