Confessions of a Control Freak / Mrs Cindy Harris

Mrs Cindy Harris

Wife / Mom / Grandma

Lafayette Bible Baptist Church

Wildwood, MO

Confessions of a Control Freak

I am a control freak. I guess I just grew up like that. Just let me do it myself. That way I will know it is the done the “right” way. (that would be MY way) I tried to let go but sometimes I just couldn’t. As an example, we homeschooled our 3 children for a couple of years when it was necessary. I’m afraid to say my children were probably a bit crazy with my system of organization and the structure that I kept for them. My rationale was that I wasn’t a trained teacher so it was my way of coping with what seemed like the overwhelming task of this new challenge. I’m sure my family could come up with many more examples of my controlling but suffice it to say, I can be a bit over-bearing at times.
Still my life seemed to be fairly trouble free. We moved to Northern Illinois in 1999 and the kids were put back in school. Whew! I can quit controlling, right? Not really. I struggled with lots of issues with having older children at home. Letting go of things that were out of my control, such as the demands of a large ministry on my family, that was fairly involved in many different ministries at church and school. I also got involved where I could. Ladies’ soul winning, working in a busy church nursery, and I even volunteered in the kitchen at the college we had at our church.
Then in January of 2004, when I was 43 years old, something life changing happened to me. I had gone to lunch with my husband and later that day 1/2 of my face and even inside my mouth went numb. My first instinct was that I had eaten something that maybe I was allergic to. When the numbness lingered into the next few days, I made an appointment with my primary care doctor. She is the sort of doctor, who when presented with a strange thing, will search until she knows what is wrong. She thought I had Bells Palsy at first but I had no facial dragging, so she was still unsure. I also had become rather dizzy along with the numbness. She wrote in my chart that day that dizziness wasn’t normal with Bells Palsy. After 2 weeks the numbness was still there, and the dizziness was beginning to really bother me. When I called her, hoping for some sort of medication to help me with the dizziness, she responded with an order for an MRI! Ugh! So I had that done right away and the very day I had it done she had the results. I had Multiple Sclerosis! They had found plaque on my brain.
For those unfamiliar with MS, it is an auto immune disease where your immune system goes haywire, attacking your central nervous system. Anything in or on your body that is controlled by that CNS could at ANYTIME stop working. There is usually NO WARNING! Well, you can imagine what this news did to this control freak! Things were suddenly very much out of my control! I had to start seeing a neurologist on a regular basis, learn to give myself injections, and also learn that there were now going to be some limitations on what I could and couldn’t do anymore.
I did finish out the school year in the college kitchen but after that I realized it was taking more and more energy to do that. Auto immune diseases usually do one thing... make you tired. Everything became an effort to do. I struggled with the fact that I needed a nap every day, then I couldn’t sleep well at night. Suddenly all control was taken away from me. I always had loved the verse Philippians 4:13 “I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me”. Suddenly that verse became very real to me. I am not doing anything in my own strength, but it is through Christ that I can do anything!!
What have I learned through this challenge in my life? 1. That Christ is what gives me the strength to do anything. 2. That having a husband who prays for you is the greatest blessing! My husband has had the patience of Job with me over the years and we are closer than ever now that we are “empty nesters”. He prays for me every day! 3. Don’t stop doing things that are right to do if you can possibly still do them. I still was a part of that ladies’ group, I still was a nursery worker, I still worked the altar each service. 4. Most importantly, I can trust Jesus!! If I can trust Him to take me to heaven, (you have done that, right?) then surely I can trust Him with my life here on earth. If you’re His then nothing can happen without his OK. Job 2:10b “What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips.”

Am I still a control freak? Yes sometimes I can still be that way. To my shame.I struggled writing this devotion. Maybe that is because once I send it out it is no longer in my control?!! I still have never had a relapse in my MS journey. That is HUGE! I’m now into my 14th year and although I am exhausted when I go to bed each night, I’ve not had a relapse. Our youth pastor preached a message Sun. and used a verse that really brought it all together for me. It was Philippians 1:12 “But I would ye should understand, brethren, that the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel.” I pray when my life is ended that this is what can be said of me. What about you?