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A life of peace we yearn.

Trusting Faith: Letting Go of the Wheel

    "The only thing that stands between a man and what he wants from life is often merely the will to try it and the faith to believe that it is possible." ~ Richard M. DeVos

    Making a conscious change or life decision is accessible to you at any given minute.  As you read this article, take relax, reflect, and choose to let go of the wheel that is controlling your life.  Release your tight grip and focus your energy towards your breathing and the rise and fall of your chest.  Use this time to resonate with your life dreams, hopes, and beliefs; remember you are here for a divine purpose. Whatever your purpose may be... there is reason.  Your life is a gift, believe and trust in that purpose, not only for yourself, but for all others around you. There are many people lost in faith and searching for that same goal... peace of mind. What do you believe in? What is your purpose in this life? Do you still have faith or have you lost it? Are you living your life by grazing the surface or are you digging deeper?

    Trusting faith and letting go of the wheel is a title filled with inspiration, motivation, and spirit.  By implementing trust and belief, you can learn what true faith is in your life. But first, you have to accept and commit to a higher calling.  For many people, committing to a higher power is a difficult concept, because where there should be faith, there is doubt and desolate confusion.    Within the chaos, they often tend to follow a misleading path... a path of doubt that leads to dead-end journeys.  Some people are living a life of negative based words, i.g. “despair, anger, fear, sloth, anxiety, selfishness, manipulation, domination, obsessive behavior” that leads to nowhere.  Control in a negative environment is codependency at its worst.  Controlling people fear abandonment and therefore, they try to control the people they are dependent on.  They want to have power and are often referred by others as, "Being on a power trip."  Faith is a positive word... an assumption; it is a confidence or belief with a strong conviction for which there may be no concrete proof. Faith is simply the opposite of fear and doubt. Faith is often used as a substitute for hope, trust, or belief, but in all essence those three words are intricate ingredients in the recipe for faith.  Prayer is another crucial ingredient in living your life in faith.  You can choose to live a misleading path or you can choose to change your life for the betterment of yourself and those around you.   

    Your mind, heart, hands, and body wants to be dictating how everything should be done.  Are you a perfectionist and like to have everything a certain way?  Perfection can be misleading, as well.  Do you ever tell people, "I just like to have things a certain way," "I'm a control freak," or "It's my way or the highway"?  Are there people in your life you are trying to control?  Do you waste valuable energy on business that doesn’t concern you?  Let it go!  You are deflating your own spirit by controlling everything around you.  Are you mentally and physically exhausted?  Are you overwhelmed?  We tend to want control every aspect of our lives, including the steering wheel of our car.  Belted in the driver’s seat, we taxi ourselves or our children through one busy day after another. We have responsibilities with work, family, kids, finance, health, relationships; and it's habit to want control of every aspect of those responsibilities (because we're always in the driver's seat), right? But, if you look up the word responsibility, you'll find the word "control" somewhere close by, and this is where all the confusion begins. The more we demand to have the control over our responsibilities and want the power over every situation, the more out of control our lives become. One of the reasons people tend to lose faith (hope, trust, belief) is because they don't get their desired result in a situation.   Then, a year later, they learn that what they were trying to control was never meant to be after all!  If only they would have had faith in that situation and time to let go of the wheel!  Do not lose faith when things get chaotic, that's when you should have more faith, because you are supposed to learn something from that experience.  And, it is your choice as to how you will handle it.  Will you let it go or will you try to get your way instead of His way? 

    How many times have you tried to control the outcome of a situation in your life? Do you panic and forget to think straight?  Do you act and make impulsive decisions based on fear, anger, or depression?  If so, then there's a place where you can rest- a place where there is peace, a place where you are no longer the driver... but the passenger. The wheel is still there, but this time you can say, "I'd like to go left" or "I'd like to go right." It is trusting that no matter which way your car turns, it will be for an outcome of greater service in your life and trusting that you don't have to have the hassle and worry of being in control.

    In reality, I like to drive my own vehicle... rarely will you find me in the passenger seat.  To this day, the reason is fear based experiences.  I grew up with an abusive, alcoholic step-father and alcoholic mother.  Much of their time was spent down at different local bars for hours and many times, I as a child, would have to go with them.  Very rarely, did the evening ever end without an argument between them.  Intoxicated and fighting they would exit the bar and I knew it would be a terrifying ride home.  I knew what was going to happen.  The beatings happened almost every night.  I always believed that one day my mother would be beaten to death and I always feared, "Would this be the night?".  My gargantuan, red-faced step-father, would get behind the wheel of our family van and before he even put the keys in the ignition, I knew (as I sat in the back seat), I had absolutely no control over my destiny. The only thing I did have was prayer. Within seconds, as the tire wheels began to turn, so did my fearful mind. How can I control this situation? How can I get out? So many factors were against me (let alone my mean, annihilated, and controlling step-father and drunk mother).  I believed wouldn't see the light of another day. The first factor against me was in the 1970's, we weren't required to wear seatbelts. Second, we were miles from home and I couldn't bail out of a moving van. Thirdly, if I said one word, the beatings would also be directed by him upon me.  I was an only child who always fended for myself and spent the majority of my time in my room alone.  I lost faith in praying and I lost faith in my higher power.  I felt alone without guidance and lost in a violent world. 

    But, back to the speeding van... I don't have enough fingers or toes to count the many times I feared for my life on the rides home.  My step-dad would swerve back and forth, cross into the opposite lane, slam on the brakes, intentionally drive erratically,  and even drive off the road down into the ditch.  My step-father would yell at the top of his lungs, bully, grab, and threaten my mother taking his eyes off the road to focus on her.  I witnessed this craziness, selfishness, insanity, and senseless behavior time and time again.  I was deathly afraid and hung on for dear life. I prayed, "God, please just get us home safe. God, please just make him stop swerving. God... oh God, please help me." But on and on the fighting went and so did the out-of-control van. My step-abuser would threaten to beat the daylights out of my mom if she didn't shut the "blank" up!  I'd pray again for her not to say another word... but she always did. Check! Another prayer not answered (I'd think in my mind). Fragmented flashes of highway signs, ditches, yellow stripes, trees, gravel going everywhere, and prayers not answered are cemented in my mind. I can still see my step-abuser's one hand on the steering wheel, while the other arm reached out to pummel my mother with punches. He'd let go of the wheel and I would grab it and steer just to keep us from going into the ditch. Many times, he'd slam his foot on the brake pedal as a warning, but then in a flash, the van would stop, and he was yanking her out of the van to hit her.  The beatings finally stopped some years ago when he met his own demise in a local hospital due to natural causes.  My mother continues to drink and is in another abusive relationship.  Like I said earlier, people have choices as to how they will live their lives.  It's not about control, it's about making the right choices and letting go of past pains, regrets, mistakes, and learning to forgive.  You can choose to live a miserable life or you can choose to let it go.  No one can do it for you. 

    Through the years I thought, "If I don't have control over my own life... who will?  If I want to be something, have things, or be safe, I have to control every aspect of my life."  I used to believe in my 20's, that faith and prayer didn't help me much when I was a child and teenager, so why should I start believing or having hope now?  Well, needless to say, things didn't go well in my 20's under my control either... in fact, they got worse. So again, I asked myself, "Why start having faith now?"  Well, actually the answer was simple... I discovered over much soul-searching, that the one thing I could control was my desire to have a good life.  I didn't want to live my life unhappy and in dysfunction like I did in my past.  I decided to have faith in a better existence.  I knew that I wanted to make a positive difference in my lifetime, so  I chose to believe that something greater than myself could help me do that. And, that I wouldn't let Him down.  You have a CHOICE.  Our higher power is always presenting us with choices and options, but it is ultimately your control as to which choice you will make in this life.  I chose to have faith.  I chose to be a positive difference in someone else's life.  I've seen the alternative of not having faith flash before my eyes many times.  How I'm even alive today... I can't even tell you.  All I know is that faith is for a greater purpose and that's why I choose to let go of the wheel in my own life.  It's a humongous weight off your shoulders when you can turn all of your worrying energy over to something greater than yourself and say, "I give You the wheel to my life. I give it all to you. I trust you and know that my life is in your hands now.  Take it all!  All my worries, all my fears, all my hopes and all my dreams.  I have faith that You will guide me in the right direction."  That's when it actually feels amazing to sit in the passenger seat!!  And honestly, it's the only time I feel totally at ease to sit in the passenger seat.  Sure, I'm only human and sometimes I have to give myself a pinch to remind myself to snap and think, "Wait a minute, I'm trying to control this situation." I trust my Higher Power to look out for my best interests and safety.  It's comforting to know that there is someone I trust who has my back and my well-being at heart.  To this day, I have issues with my mother not making the right choices in her life.  But, I cannot control her life.  As painful as it is, I have to let it go.  I choose to live my life on a different path and dysfunction is not a part of my hopes and beliefs.  Dysfunction only brings misery and a dismal shortened existence.  Faith brings hope and joy for eternity.

    Can you recall as a kid how good it felt when you rode your bike and you let go of the handle bars?  Back in the 70's, we used to call it riding "free-hand."  Sure, it was scary at first, but eventually you did it because you wanted to know what it felt like to not use your hands.  Remember how freeing it felt to extend your arms out to your sides while the bike steered itself (with of course, a little balance on your part).  So, as you extend your arms out in faith, feel that same freedom~ let go of your worries, anxiety, fear, and cares~ turn them over to a Higher Power.  Have you ever seen people in church reach out and extend their arms?  They are turning over control to a power greater than themselves.  They are honoring their Higher Power and what they can no longer do for themselves.  When you release your power, mean it.  Let go of the wheel that is steering your life.  Remember those dark times in your life when you may have crumbled to the ground and said, "I can't do this no more... I surrender."  That is true freedom.  “Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall” (Psalm 55:22).  “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7).  Remember, life is not about control, it's about trusting and believing to let go of the wheel.  LET IT GO!

"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." - Philippians 4:13