Learning to Let Go of What You Cannot Control

I used to think worry meant I cared.

For a long time, that is how I saw it.

If I was worried, that meant I was paying attention.

If my mind was racing, that meant I was being responsible.

If I was thinking through every possible thing that could go wrong, I thought I was preparing myself.

But the older I get, the more I realize worry is not the same thing as wisdom.

Worry can look like love on the outside, but on the inside, it can quietly turn into fear, control, and exhaustion.

It can make us believe we are doing something useful when really, we are just sitting in the same painful thoughts over and over again.

I have had to learn this the hard way.

There have been seasons in my life when I wanted answers so badly.

I wanted to know how things were going to turn out.

I wanted to know if my children were going to be okay.

I wanted to know if I was making the right decisions.

I wanted to know if I was going to survive the changes I never asked for.

When you have lived through divorce, motherhood, starting over, disappointment, and seasons where life feels like it fell apart without asking your permission, control can start to feel like safety.

At least that is how it felt for me.

After being married for eighteen years, raising children, and then having to rebuild my life in ways I never pictured, I understand why a woman can become tired from trying to hold everything together.

Sometimes it is not because we are trying to be difficult.

It is because life has taught us that things can change fast, and we don’t want to be caught off guard again.

So, we think ahead.

We replay conversations.

We worry about the kids.

We think about money.

We wonder about the future.

And before we know it, we are living with a body that is exhausted and a mind that never gets quiet.

I know what it feels like to lie in bed tired while my thoughts are wide awake.

I know what it feels like to go over a situation again and again, as if thinking about it one more time will finally give me peace.

I know what it feels like to pray about something and then pick the worry right back up like I never handed it to God in the first place.

That is the part I have had to be honest about. 

Sometimes I would say I trusted God, but my worry told a different story.

I saw something once that said worrying is believing God is going to mess up, and that hit me in a place I was not expecting.

Not because I thought I had no faith, but because I realized how often I acted like everything depended on me.

That kind of thinking will wear a woman out.

Because the truth is, I can’t control everything.

I can’t control how other people treat me.

I can’t control whether someone tells the truth.

I can’t control who stays, who leaves, who understands, or who refuses to see my heart.

I can’t control the past.

I can’t control every outcome.

I can’t control every choice my children make as they grow into their own lives.

That one is hard for a mother.

Because when you love your children, you want to protect them from every pain, every wrong turn, every heartbreak, every lesson that might hurt.

But motherhood has taught me that love and control are not the same thing.

I can guide.

I can pray.

I can show up.

I can love them. I can be honest. I can try to be a safe place. But I can’t live their lives for them.

That is where letting go starts to become faith in real life.

Not the pretty kind of faith we talk about when everything feels peaceful.

I mean the kind of faith where your voice shakes.

The kind where your pillow has tears on it.

The kind where you don’t know how something will work out, but you keep getting up anyway.

For me, letting go doesn’t mean I stop caring.

It means I stop pretending I am responsible for carrying what only God can carry.

I can do my part.

I can make the call.

I can set the boundary.

I can apologize when I am wrong.

I can walk away from what keeps hurting me.

I can take care of my mind, my body, my spirit, and my peace.

I can choose my next right step.

But after that, I have to release the rest.

And that is not always easy.

Some days I have to release the same thing more than once.

Sometimes I hand it to God in the morning and take it back by lunch.

Sometimes I think I have let something go until a memory, a text, a bill, a family situation, or a quiet moment brings it all back up again.

That doesn’t mean I failed.

It means I am human.

I think a lot of us as women need to hear that.

We are so used to being the strong one, the helper, the fixer, the planner, the one who keeps everybody else moving.

We can carry so much for so long that we forget we were never meant to carry everything.

There is a difference between being responsible and trying to control the whole outcome.

Being responsible says, “I will do what is mine to do.”

Control says, “I will wear myself down trying to force life to feel safe.”

I have lived both.

And peace did not come from controlling more.

Peace started coming when I learned to loosen my grip.

Sometimes that looks like taking a walk instead of sitting in my thoughts.

Sometimes it looks like writing in my journal because my mind needs somewhere to put the weight.

Sometimes it looks like saying, “I don’t have the answer today, but I can still take care of myself today.”

Sometimes it is choosing not to chase what God is removing.

That one will humble you.

But when I look back over my life, I can see places where what I cried over was also what protected me.

I can see times where I wanted something to work so badly, but later realized I would have lost more of myself trying to keep it.

I can see how some heartbreaks, losses, and closed doors pushed me into becoming a woman I may not have become any other way.

I didn’t see it then.

I was too busy worrying.

Now I am learning that I don’t have to understand the whole picture to trust the next step.

Sometimes the next step is rest.

Sometimes it is prayer.

Sometimes it is therapy.

Sometimes it is making a hard decision.

Sometimes it is forgiving yourself.

Sometimes it is staying quiet and letting time tell the truth.

Sometimes it is getting through the day without beating yourself up.

That counts too.

Letting go is not giving up. It is admitting that I am not God, and I was never supposed to carry life like I am.

I still care deeply.

I still have moments where my mind wants to run ahead.

I still have days when I have to talk myself back into peace.

But I am not the same woman I used to be.

I don’t want to spend the rest of my life losing sleep over things I can’t control.

I want to live.

I want to breathe.

I want to laugh again.

I want to enjoy the small things without guilt.

I want to trust that even when life feels uncertain, I am still being held.

So when worry starts knocking, I try to ask myself a better question now.

What is actually mine to do today?

Not next year.

Not ten steps from now.

Not every possible outcome.

Today.

And if I have done what is mine to do, then the rest has to go back into God’s hands.

Because peace is not found in knowing everything.

Sometimes peace is found in finally admitting that I don’t have to.

#EvolvingWomanhood