write a post. check.

I like lists.

I make lists every day. Several times a day.

I like crossing things off lists. I love the look of a neatly written list with perfectly straight lines through each item. It makes me feel happy.

I usually only write lists with my colored pens. It looks prettier. It makes the list look much less daunting when it is fresh, and a lot more satisfying when it is completed. Today I wrote a list in a green pen. I will cross things off with orange. I never use black. It's so dreadfully mundane.

I make lists about making lists. I need to make a list of books to read for the summer. I need to make a list about things to pack for Mexico. I need to make a list of people and addresses for the summer.

When I have a particularly frightening-looking list, I add small, trivial tasks to the list, just so that I can immediately cross them off. Just so I have some sense of progress.

Wake up. Check.
Brush teeth. Done.
Check email. Yes.

However, sometimes when I am finished with a list, no task left undone, I am still hesitant to throw it away. A perfect example of my excellent organization and precision in the trash can? Right next to the banana peel from yesterday's breakfast?? A waste. Eventually I do let go (I do not have a folder containing nothing but finished lists), but not without a cumbersome internal struggle.

I like being in control. This much should be obvious by my great affinity for lists. And the more that occurs in my life that is so obviously outside my control, the stronger I grip the inconsequential details of my life. White knuckles clutching at some semblance of stability. Order. Dependability. Sanity.

Yet, the more I see these uncontrollable situations, the more I grasp at thin air. The more I fail.

I can add to my list:
-Mend my family
-Restore my relationship with God
-Love people
But I have no hope of being able to neatly draw a line through the items by myself. The things in my life over which I do not have complete control.

I think I need to stop pretending I have everything under control and start trusting....

Trusting that when I fall, He will still be standing. That when I fall, He is actually holding on to all the pieces of my life that I was trying so desperately hard to fit together.