Hi, my name is Cris, and I’m a control freak.
And somewhere out there, I know at least a few of you are nodding your heads right now.
The funny thing is, my need for control has never really been about controlling other people. Honestly, most days I can barely keep my own circus in order. What I’ve always wanted to control was my environment. My feelings. The chaos. I wanted life to feel safe and predictable.
But I think a lot of us know that feeling.
Some of us learned early to read the room before we walked into it. To tiptoe around tension. To become “good,” helpful, easy, and agreeable. Somewhere along the line, many of us became hypervigilant without even realizing it. People pleasers. Overthinkers. Chronic worriers carrying responsibilities we were never meant to carry alone.
And underneath all of that?
Anxiety.
A lot of it.
So we spend years trying to manage uncomfortable feelings the only ways we know how. Sometimes those coping mechanisms are unhealthy. Sometimes they look perfectly acceptable from the outside. But at the core, they are all trying to accomplish the same thing: escape discomfort and create some illusion of control.
The problem is, control is exhausting.
The harder we try to manage every outcome, every emotion, and every uncertainty, the more anxious we often become. Life has a way of reminding us that no matter how tightly we grip the steering wheel, we are still profoundly human and very much not in charge of everything.
Eventually, we have to face the hard truth that what we are doing simply doesn’t work.
Ironically, it’s surrender that has the power to change us.
Not surrender in the hopeless sense. Surrender in the honest sense. The kind where we finally admit we are tired of carrying the weight of the world on our shoulders.
And for me, it was surrendering to Jesus that changed everything.
Not because I suddenly became perfect.
Not because life suddenly became easy.
But because grace entered the story.
The kind of grace that does not recoil from our humanity.
The kind that meets us right in the middle of our mess.
The kind that reminds us we were never meant to hold everything together by ourselves.
I think a lot of us are exhausted from trying.
We spend so much energy trying to manage uncertainty, avoid pain, predict outcomes, keep everyone happy, and appear okay. But healing rarely begins with pretending we have it all under control.
Healing begins with honesty.
With letting ourselves be human.
With understanding that grace has never required perfection.
I still catch myself trying to wrestle life into submission sometimes like a raccoon fighting a garbage can behind a Waffle House. Old habits die hard.
But these days, I’m learning to loosen my grip a little more often.
And honestly? I breathe better when I do.
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