Thank God, I am not in charge!

Most of us operate under the illusion that we have control over our lives; when disaster (cancer/ earth-quack) strikes, that illusion is shattered. It pushes us out of our safe little existence into  a new world filled with uncertainty. It forces us to accept the fact that we are vulnerable. It forces us to admit we do not know what tomorrow will bring. It forces us to face our own powerlessness.

Our body, our environment  our family and friends, can betray us any moment. They might not meant to, but sooner or later they would and we should be ready for it. And, that would be our first indication that we are not in control.

Lack of control continues to manifest itself in other ways as well; suddenly we could lose our jobs, we would lose our property, our loved ones, our body part, even our lives. And there is nothing we can do,  except accept defeat and pray for deliverance. We have to remind ourselves, that God is in control, not us.

When a disaster strike, it would bring with it,  physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual pain. Sometimes, it seems the physical pain is the easiest one to deal with because we can control it with medication, the rest of them are harder to diagnose as well as treat.   Jesus in addition to the sever pain of  crucifixion, He also suffered from loneliness, rejection from His friends, public ridicule and failure in the eyes of the world. To certain extent, we experience these pains too.

The first and most important step to deal with disaster is acceptance. Acceptance should not be confused with resignation. Before we learn with the fruit of crucifixion  we must accept it in whatever package it comes to us; physical and mental suffering, the cancellation of of a well-laid plan for our future, standing upright and steady when it seems that the props we depended on are knocked from beneath us. The cross may exile us from home and all the persons and things we deeply cherish. It is not easy, we might cry out like Christ 'My God, My God, why did you forsake me?"

And, once we passed that we have to go to the second step of letting go. Letting go actually can be a great thing, it is freedom  This is what Fr. Richard John Neuhaus said about letting go -  "Not in sadness," he said "Not at all. But in a kind of amazement that this had happened to me, and maybe I was going to die and maybe I was going to live, and it was all quite out of my control. That was it, I think: I was not in charge, and it was both strange and very good not to be in charge."

We need to let go of our personal agenda. That means, we need to find peace in whatever we are doing right now.

• We need to let go of unrealistic expectations.The past is gone and the future is unknown. The only place where we can get God is in this moment.
• We need to let go of our superficiality. We need to let go of self-sufficiency. We need to learn to ask and receive help from others.
• We need to let  go of worry. We need to learn  to leave everything to God. Accept that whatever is going to happen would happen whether you worry about it or not. We need to trust God with everything. 

Once we learn to let go, we can focus the energy we used to  spend trying to control everything into a more positive direction toward the things that are really important. It is a process of learning how to place our trust in God. It is only when we let go of our personal agenda and surrender to the will of God that we learn how to live. Surrendering to the will of God is not easy. We may find that we have to consciously surrender every day of our life. But, once we do, like Fr. Neuhaus, we would come to see the kind  of freedom and peace, that can be achieve from 'not being in control.'