I’m In Control…….

Wow!  The last couple of days have been jam-packed for me.  Lots of things (good and bad) happening in my life, but I’m happy to say the good outweighs the bad, and I am on my way (I hope) to learning how to cope better with the bad.

Things with the crazy ex are starting to heat up – his regular insanity continues, but now therapists are involved, changes are being made, and a court date is looming.  Despite his craziness (or just plain meanness), my children are healthy and (mostly) happy, and that is what matters.  Things never move fast enough with the court system, and I have never been long on patience.

I am trying to remain positive (the glass is half-full, right?) and focus on the good things.  Things are going well between the boyfriend and me, we just found out he might have benefits through his job (it’s contract work, so that’s a real bonus!), we don’t have to worry about money, and I am having a blast blogging!

I am still new enough at this to get a real charge when I log in to post and I have comments waiting and new followers!!  I have posted previously about trying to find my voice and I think I doing just that.

There have been some things on my mind for a while, and today I heard some things that I had never really considered before.  The last few years have been very difficult (the divorce, new job, death of loved ones) and I have been trying to understand why (and how) I ended up where I am.  My sister always tells me that ‘God has a plan,’ even if we can’t see it.  In part because of her faith, I started going back to church myself, thinking I could find some answers.  I mean, God has all the answers, right?

But today the lesson centered around the question of whether or not God was truly in control.  If we have free will, how can he be in control?  And the lesson, for me, was not about whether God was in control, but about my choices.  I wanted someone to tell me that everything I’ve been through in the last few years wasn’t for nothing, that there was a reason for all the pain and suffering (mine and those I love).

After some discussion and thought, I don’t think God is in control.  He gave that up when he gave us free will.  He is, like me, a parent.  He wants me to do well and make the right choices, but he loves me enough to let me make some really stupid mistakes, using my free will.  I don’t want MY children to fail – but I also know that they have to make their own mistakes, and that I can’t live their lives for them.  Nor would they want me too.  If I did, it wouldn’t be THEIR lives.

And that was the REAL lesson I needed to learn.  Someone made the comment that if God controlled everything, we would lose our passion for living.  If everything is predetermined and you have no choice in anything, if someone else controls everything you do, would you want to live like that?  And suddenly I realized that I had lived like that – with my ex.

My ex wanted to control everything about my life (and still does).  He wanted to control where I worked, who I was friends with, how I spent my free time, what I ate, what I wore – everything.  I endured his emotional abuse and controlling ways for so long that I lost myself – and my will.  Towards the end of our marriage, I gave up.  I no longer made an effort to do things, because nothing I did was ever right.  When you can’t please someone, no matter what you do, eventually you give up – no matter how much you love them.  You reach a point where your soul can no longer take the pain.  You shut down.  You do only what you have to do to get through the day.

Towards the end of our marriage, my ex (convinced of his control over me), told me he wanted us to have an ‘open’ marriage – one in which he continued to deny his homosexuality while he tried to convince me that I could sleep with other men (with his encouragement), and bring them back home so he could sleep with them too.  The really sad part is that I tried to convince myself that his ridiculous idea would work.  It didn’t.  (Shocker, I know.)   I was not raised to believe that an ‘open’ marriage will work and I could not follow through with his, well – icky, plan.

What I realized today (a long way to get there, sorry), was that maybe I didn’t end up where I am because God has a plan for me that I can’t see.  Maybe I ended up where I am today because of free will – mine, my ex’s, and anybody else who was involved.  I could have chosen to leave my ex long ago – I chose to stay, even with our problems, because of our children.  When things got really bad, I realized that I was doing the kids more harm than good by staying and exposing them to my ex’s insanity.  So I chose to get out of the situation.

Now, that doesn’t mean that God doesn’t still have a plan for me.  He just has to constantly make adaptations to his plan, because I keep throwing him curveballs with my choices.  It’s one of the first times since I started going back to church that I left feeling better than when I came in.  I think I realized too that I had been looking for the wrong thing – if I could say I was where I was because of God, then I wasn’t to blame for anything that happened.  So, in a strange way, knowing that I am where I am because of my own choices (good and bad) made me feel better than thinking that I had absolutely no control over things.

So – with that new outlook, things actually look a lot rosier.  Rather than sitting back and waiting for things to happen to me, I know I can move forward, make choices, and cause things to happen.  I am losing that ‘victim’ outlook – that everything is out of my control.  I am becoming the person I have always wanted to be.

Part of that is my blogging.  I want to write, and this blog helps me to learn and grow as a writer.  So – keep the comments coming!!!  I promise I still have lots of craziness to share!!!!