Control Freak

I gripped the steering wheel of my life so tightly,

my hands forgot how to open.

Control became my prayer—

a silent plea that if I held everything in place,

nothing would break.

My image.

My home.

My husband.

Even my emotions.

I held them all.

Tightly.

Perfectly.

Privately.

Because if they looked whole on the outside,

maybe I wouldn’t feel the fractures inside.

I organized. I predicted. I perfected.

Not because I wanted power—

but because I was scared.

Scared of what would happen

if I didn’t hold the walls up myself.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want help.

I just didn’t know how to fall

without shattering.

Without shame.

Control told me:

“Don’t cry. Don’t let go. Don’t trust.

They won’t catch you. They never do.”

But what control didn’t prepare me for

was grief.

Was God.

Was the holy breakdown that comes

when everything you once held

no longer holds you.

It was the lump in my chest that broke me.

The silence in my marriage.

The prayer that turned into a sob.

The hands I couldn’t lift anymore—not even to fake it.

And when I finally dropped it all,

when I stopped performing—

God caught me.

In the unraveling, I found rest.

In the stillness, I found truth.

In the softening, I found myself again.

Now I no longer worship control.

I worship the One who held me

when control couldn’t.

Because the truth is—

control was never strength.

It was survival.

And I don’t live there anymore.