Choices = Control .... Right?

There is something deep inside us that desires the ability to make one's own choices. It's a thing born deep inside us when we are young. To be able to make our own choices and not have to ask permission gives a certain sense of worth to us, I think. So, we strive to get to an age where we can begin to make our own choices. Giving us, not only a sense of being worth something but also, a sense of control over ourselves.

But what if....

What if choices that were made for us, choices that we thought we made for ourselves, choices we were able to make for ourselves all ended with losing control? What if those choices created such pain and heartache, we ended up all alone, shattered? Guilt-ridden, blaming, full of shame, judging, hiding....the ultimate breaking of our self worth....

Choice becomes something different as we get older. It still feels like it should give control, but there are all these options that go with it. There are the gut-reflex choices we make like, going to work/school, getting up in the morning, doing the dishes---or whatever compilation of things that make up your every day. Even though they are the "every day" things that make up our lives, I wonder how many of us stop and recognize that even things that don't "seem" optional still are. Each thing requires choice in order to complete the action. But wait. Those are automatic things, so they don't count, right? Wrong.

They do count. And deep down, I think we might know this. Because we find the action of doing these things as something that will bring some sort of worth back to us. Someone compliments the action we find "every day" and that makes us work harder at that thing....striving to become worthy.

Do we recognize this? Do we recognize that even though, deep down, there is a belief that we are unworthy, we keep trying to become worthy?

I want to stop here for a second and show us all something.

HOPE.

The "try" that we keep doing is the sheer definition of hope. The problem? The problem is that we are "trying" the same things but still feeling the same way. That's a choice. Maybe it's automatic because that's what we've learned makes the least number of waves. Or maybe, the waves come too fast to think there could be another way. Or maybe life has just been so painful that fear overwhelms the thought that things really could be different.

This is no dig on any of us as people. This is a very normal response to traumatic things we carry. The thing I want to focus on is HOPE.

There is this beautiful ember deep inside that burns just enough. No matter how hard we might try to bury it or put it out because it seems pointless, it seems to always be there. It's why people get sober, why they go to college, why they get free....why we attempt so many things.

The reason hope doesn't die on us? Because the very core of who we are and how we were created won't allow it. Love doesn't give up. That love makes up our DNA and our hope is attached to it. Where we falter? We choose to think we can do it ourselves. That it's based on some sort of goal we have to reach first. That goal will give us worth and then hope will be fulfilled and we can pat ourselves on the back--we finally made it.

The choice is the key to controlling the outcome, right? I agree. But here, for us, for the core of who we are and who we were created to be...it's recognizing that demanding control has not really changed anything. Because we've actually given control to whatever thing we are choosing to focus on.

Wait, what!!?!

To the phone that never leaves our hand, the job that provides all the "things", the spouse doted on, the children given everything for, the house, the drugs, the tv, the projects, the volunteering....the list goes on and on. Our worth comes from the thing we strive to be "good enough" at. This becomes the thing that we've given control to.

What if?

What if we choose to give control to the love that lives in us. The love within our DNA? If we allowed that to be the thing we walked in every day? Would we be able to look at our worth differently. Could we walk, unforced, with freedom through our days with confidence?

I know that we can.

Choosing is what allows us to fully find our worth.......but what will you choose?

The truth?

or

The lie?