Small reminders that we aren’t in control

Kaity Holtman

I just read some meme that said “May the final four months of your 2017 be the plot twist you have been waiting for.”

And I immediately went, “whoa. No thank you.”

These next four months are going to be a jam-packed whirlwind.

Pack, sell, purge, prepare to move.

Finish up the new house.

Actually move.

Unpack, organize, settle in.

Prepare for baby.

Have a baby.

Adjust to having two kids, adjust child to new baby.

Celebrate Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.

That, among regular life, is plenty for us at this point in time. No plot twists for me, thank you God.

Though, I should probably be careful saying that.

I always used to say, “it’s good luck if it rains on your wedding day.”

Then there were no rain drops of any kind on my wedding day.

Sometimes God sends us messages like that as reminders that we are not in control.

Now that we’re having our second child, “the question” a lot of people ask is, “how many kids are you going to have.”

My answer is always, “one at a time.” Then we’ll see if we can handle another and go from there. Or we’ll take what God gives us because it hasn’t always been an easy journey, and we’re happy to accept what he thinks we need.

And after a few times of saying that, I thought back to our dry wedding day

Suddenly I realized I better be careful about saying, “one at a time,” because God sure does have an interesting sense of humor.

And even as I say, “no plot twists,” I realize such circumstances are not always in our hands.

Just like with our first pregnancy, we have not found out the gender of this baby either.

We get a lot of comments about how that would be hard and people like to know what’s coming and have control.

Usually I am the same way. But in circumstances like having a new baby 20-21 months after our first child, our world is going to flip upside down anyway.

So any preparations I would do, would only get me so far anyway.

Why do we have this constant need to feel like we are in control of every aspect of our lives? Why is it so hard for us to come to terms with the idea that there is someone bigger than ourselves running the show?

I think not finding out the gender of our babies has been a good lesson for me in realizing I don’t have control over everything. It’s nine – okay, let’s be real, it’s 10 – months of having this incredibly maternal, close relationship to this being growing within me, being fully responsible for it, yet not knowing the gender, details on health, or even color of hair. To feel so connected to this person, yet not knowing exactly what God has in store for us once the baby is born – that is truly a give-it-to-God moment that I have grown to appreciate.

We can control a lot of things in our lives, and we should take responsibility for our actions and decisions. But that doesn’t mean that many circumstances don’t have a bigger hand guiding our paths.

It’s how we respond to those circumstances that we can control, though still with a little guidance from above.

I suppose that is a topic of discussion I could debate with a lot of people, but that’s how I see it.

For now, I’ll continue to ask God not to give me more than I can handle, knowing that any blessing or challenge He gives me is meant to be shared with Him, and not kept to myself.

And I’ll continue to hope His sense of humor isn’t too much for me to handle in these next few months … or years.

Kaity Holtman is the Agriculture Editor for the Maryville Daily Forum.