I’m a recovering control freak. The recovery began a few years ago when our daughter was critically ill, and I learned the hard way that the illusion I’d carried my whole life of having any control had always been a farce. I learned then that God had always been the only one in control, and that He was more than capable of handling things.
So when I made my last job change, I was determined to leave the decision to Him. As it came down to two great choices, I prayed a lot about which direction to go. Both options had significant pros and cons, and the two presented about as stark a choice as was possible. I had my favorite, but I was determined to remain completely open to where God wanted me to be. As both choices led me down a parallel path, a light kept shining on the one I favored less. Just as I resigned myself to it, signs suddenly pointed to the choice I’d really wanted all along. The whole process felt like one giant test of faith. I’d passed.
Early the Monday morning of the week I was going to turn in my resignation, a dear friend sent me a note that she needed to talk to me. As we ducked into an empty office, she told me about her own epiphany she’d been gifted that weekend. She’d been struggling with her own job choice, and I instantly recognized how closely the journey of faith I was hearing her describe parallelled my own. She then told me she’d felt compelled to share her story with me that morning and asked me, “Does that make any sense?”. I burst into tears, and told her, yes, it makes all the sense in the world. What was odd was that she didn’t know I’d made a decision to leave. She’d known I was looking, but I hadn’t widely shared where I was at in my process. Though she hadn’t known, she showed up just at the right time with just the right message.
Now I’m not the kind of person who has God speak to me on a regular basis. And I’ve never before been certain that He was having someone pass a message directly to me. Though I’d had peace about my decision before my friend felt compelled to share her very personal story with me, I was overwhelmed that God loved me enough to reassure me about my own decision to trust Him. And I learned…again…Who has always been in control.
“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” –Martin Luther King Jr.