me without you.

Last weekend I watched the marathon.  I know I already posted about it, but what I didn't talk about was the amount of planning that went into it.  When you have to be responsible for several groups of people getting to three different mile markers by an ungodly early hour, and then navigating ways back downtown avoiding the blocked roads and also avoiding the football traffic only a few blocks away, to be at the finish line by a given time, especially when it was made very clear by my boss that we needed to be there at a certain time, well, planning is necessary.  To get 30 women fed, clothed, and medicated, with snacks and drinks and coats and gloves and out the door by 5:30am, there is preparation and planning.

While it was necessary before the morning of the marathon, I'm realizing its effect on many other things I do.  I like to plan ahead.

One thing I noticed yesterday is that I listen to my iPod in the car instead of the radio.  I say it's because I don't like most of the music on the radio (which is true).  I say it's because the music all sounds the same, or the messages they send are awful, or because even the Christian station plays the same songs over and over again, and I could continue with my list of reasons why I don't listen to the radio.  But on a deeper level, I realize that I want to be able to choose what music I listen to and when I want to listen to it.  I think they call that control.

So I turned on the radio instead, and the Lord spoke.
Even in the small act of relinquishing my control of my music, God works.
This song came on:  Toby Mac's Me Without You.

I began to think about where I would be right now if it wasn't for the Lord's leading in my life.  In an immediate context, well, I would no longer be in Saint Louis if it were up to me.  I ask God to remind me every day why I'm here.  I have to, or my bags would be packed.  Because everything in me wants to leave and be somewhere where I'm known, to be with people I love.  Where I am not alone.

Then I remember:  Even here, I am not alone.  When my apartment floods, God is here.  When health issues arise, God is here.  When I'm stressed about circumstances outside of my control, God is here.  When I seem to be lacking, God is here.  If He wasn't here, well.. I would be a mess.  But He is there even when I am a mess.

He is here.  And He is in control.  Of everything.  Even when I grasp for the edge of things already in His grip.

So I stop grasping.  It begins with the small things - today I thought to myself that I really wanted to see a particular movie, so I just... went.  I didn't plan ahead for it, and I even (God forbid..) left an unfinished to-do list at home.  And I listened to the radio on the way there. :)

One day at a time, one open palm at a time, I let go in the small things so I will learn to let go of the big ones.