I put the silverware into the dishwasher prongs down.  That way, when I go to remove the clean and shiny silverware, I only touch the handles.  I don’t touch the scoop of the spoon where someone will put his or her mouth.  I don’t handle the tines of the fork where licking may occur.

It makes sense to me. It’s the way my mother did it.  So it has been, so it shall be.  My way is best.

It’s not the way helpful guests at my home always do it though.

Yes, I am the woman who can be found late at night before turning on the dishwasher– turning the forks over.

Somebody help me.

This controlling tendency thing in me would be great if it remained limited to the dishwasher but it does not.  I am an opinionated woman.

Take toilet paper for example.  I like the paper rolling over the top.  Doesn’t everybody?  Ummmm.  No.  I congratulate myself on my personal growth that I now longer “fix” the toilet paper at other people’s homes when I am well, using their facilities.

It’s sad really.  Ok, maybe it’s not sad.  It’s merely a clue to a deeper need to control my world (read other people) in order to feel settled.  Safe.  Better.

Enter Jesus.  Oh yes, please, enter Jesus.

He’s compassionate and understanding and doesn’t shame me for my oddities.  But I do sometimes feel him shaking his head at me over them.  “Oh, Stasi, Stasi.  Let it go.”  He doesn’t shame me but he does invite me to change.  To see.  To be willing to engage with him so that he might reveal not only my other more harmful ways that I grasp for control but to reveal what lies underneath. 

So I might repent.  So he might heal me.  So I can grow to trust him with the little and the big.  With the forks.  With the friends.  With my family.  With my hopes and my failures.  With my cares. With my everything.

“All to Jesus, I surrender.  All to him I freely give.”  Starting with the silverware, moving on to the toilet paper and then,…well, only God knows.