Who’s Driving?

Gloriously sunny day here in Northern Idaho. It’s going to be a busy week for me. Working here in my office through Wednesday and then Thursday, I join several writing buddies here in town for our annual four-day brainstorming retreat. These gals have become so dear and besides brainstorming novel plots, we laugh till our stomachs hurt, or maybe that’s from eating too much good food. It’s going to be a blast and I can’t wait.

I’m reading Anne Lamott’s delightful book Operating Instructions: A journal of My Son’s First Year.” Anne writes with such raw transparency and humor about her life as a new single mom and the range of emotions she’s experiencing raising her son alone. I admire that.

On Day 30, she shares a powerful entry about the innate struggle she has (by extension, we all have, I say) to relinquish to God complete control over our lives. Even if we haven’t done such a hot job, our human nature still resists not controlling it ourselves. Anne then relays the following story. I’ve heard numerous analogies and metaphors about God being in control, but the simplicity of this one is unparalleled for me:

“I heard this old man speak when I was pregnant, someone who had been sober for fifty years, a very prominent doctor. He said that he’d finally figured out a few years ago that his profound sense of control, in the world and over his life, is another addiction and a total illusion. He said that when he sees little kids sitting in the backseat of cars, in those car seats that have steering wheels, with grim expressions of concentration on their faces, clearly convinced that their efforts are causing the car to do whatever it is doing, he thinks of himself and his relationship with God: God who drives along silently, gently amused, in the driver’s seat.”(1)

I love that. Have a great week everybody.

Cease striving and know that I am God. (Psalm 46:10, NAS)

(1) Anne Lamott, Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Year. Ballantine Books 1993.