“Dad, can I drive to church?” asked my teenaged son last Sunday morning.
“Sure,” said Daddy, nonchalantly opening the door to the front passenger seat.
“Everybody, get in the van,” he called.
Then he glanced at me and added, “Mom, sit in the back — and somebody put a blindfold on Mom.”
I sighed and clambered into the farthest seat from the front, while my youngest son tried to actually blindfold me with his tie.
Such has been my recent lot in life since my 16-year-old acquired his learner’s permit.
I can’t blame them.
Bad backseat driver
A natural control freak, I am a notoriously bad “backseat driver.”
I mean really bad.
The first time I rode with my son — when I was still allowed to sit near the front — I meant to yell, “Step on the brake! Step on the brake!”
But in my panic, I yelled “gas” instead of “brake.”
So, you can see my problem — and my family’s necessary remedy for it.
Lessons learned
Since relinquishing my control in the car, I’ve learned a few things while banished to the back seat:
- Pray harder and go to Confession.
- Close your eyes (if you’re not already blindfolded).
- Breathe.
- Bite your tongue.
- Buckle up and enjoy the ride.
Sound familiar?
Give up control
Sometimes in our spiritual lives we tend to naturally want to take control of all aspects of our lives, to grab the wheel and insist on telling Our Lord which direction we should go.
But until we recognize that we truly control nothing — that we literally cannot take a breath or a step without the grace of Our Lord — we have not yet approached Him with the absolute humility and dependence necessary for growth in our relationship with Him.
Love revealed
When you shed all remnants of imagined control in your life and can kneel in front of Our Lord with no facade to hide behind, deep in the well of your humble soul laid bare, you can glimpse the vast ocean of love that stretches out in eternity in the Sacred Heart of Our Lord — for each of us individually and for all of mankind.
It is breathtaking.
And life changing.
Let Our Lord drive
In the practice of surrendering control, in big and small ways and exteriorly as well as interiorly, the very things I find most difficult to hand over are the things that draw me closer to Him.
Surrendering our human-ness, with His grace, becomes a source of attaining humility before Our Lord.
Allow Our Lord to take control of every aspect of your life, even the innermost corners of your heart you think you can’t let go.
With His grace, He will help you bear the crosses of your human-ness, but only with Him in the driver’s seat.
Not me. Not you.
So, breathe, bite your tongue, close your eyes, pray harder, go to Confession.
Then buckle up and enjoy the ride.
Julianne Nornberg, mother of four children, is a teacher’s aide at St. John School in Waunakee.