The Boyd Adventures: Releasing Control

Let's be honest, we all like control some more than others. I am a person who enjoys more control than most people. I wouldn't say I'm a control freak unless you count all the times in high school and college when I was usually the club or group leader because that meant I got to set the tone of said club or do the things correctly that other group members didn't. Back then I would have just said that I liked balance or I didn't mind doing what other people disliked. As I look back, and as my husband sweetly reminds me, I realize more and more, I like control.

When I thought about having kids, my ideal situation would have been two boys and two girls because as previously mentioned, I like balance. So after we had SE, I thought we were well on our way to my ideal situation. When we found out we were having Fin, I was even more excited. Then Fin was born, and while our family was balanced in the sense of there being two boys and two girls, there also became a tension. Because Fin, bless her heart, likes her control too. And with her control also came a certain decisiveness that is fairly unwaivering. I look back to being pregnant with her and in the first days after she was born and her personality is so evident. I joke that she would have stayed in my tummy forever. She liked it there; she was content. After she was born, she needed no instruction in how to nurse, but she didn't like the pre-cursor to milk. She basically refused to eat until my milk came in. She also didn't like bottles. Sean and I went away for a night, and she didn't eat because she wouldn't take a bottle.

As she's grown, we've had to navigate this side of her. I've had to give (like when she asks if she can help bake with me) and so has she. I call her my best refiner. There's no quicker way for me to check myself then when she is having one of her decisive moments that doesn't go along with what I had in mind. I'm so grateful the Lord placed her in our family. I'm really not sure what I would do without her. She causes me to be stretched, my self control to be kept in check, and to call out for grace upon grace upon grace. I love her, can't get enough of her.