A couple of days ago, I completed one short story which is based on something that really happened in my family. Unlike most stories, this one didn’t have a happy ending. As for the real story, there is no ending yet and we haven’t had anything happy to rejoice about it.

It was only 3,600 words. It began and ended with what actually happened in real life but I made up the middle part. By the time I finished writing it, I was exhausted, emotionally.

After I sent it to my mother in-law for her to proofread, I printed a copy for myself to read as I had my dinner. I even got my husband and mother to read it. They liked it. But something about that story upset me. I’m not sure if it was because I amplified the real incident or if I wished it would’ve ended differently. Maybe I wanted to give it a happy ending. I think deep inside, I wish I could author what’s really going on in my family just as I had authored that short story.

Sometimes I wonder what God really has planned out for us. As a Christian, I was brought up to say “Thy will be done” in my prayers. When I recite The Lord’s Prayer, the phrase is mumbled as if I’m just singing a song that’s being played on the radio at the moment. I’ve taken those words for granted. As a result, I find myself wanting so much to take matters into my own hands instead of trusting in him all the time, knowing that He knows best what’s right for me.

I am someone who needs to know what’s on the agenda. Before I go out in the morning, I need to know what’s going to happen, where I need to go, what I need to do and who I’m going to meet. I’m not a one-step-at-a-time kind of person and I hate surprises.

Even after 28 years in this world and so many disappointments following unexpected happenings and failed attempts to conquer the unforeseen, I’m still determined to take control of every single detail in my life. And then as always, I fall short somewhere and become miserable.

There was a time in my life when my faith allowed myself to be astounded by what God could do for me. But after ageing drastically (probably due to having more kids and more stuff to worry about), I tend to forget that there’s a greater power that I used to rely on and that he’s the main organizer of my life.

So here are some of the things that I need to remind myself:

1. Before I was born, somebody much much greater than me had already written a whole book about me. (Something like how I write my stories, maybe?)
2. Everything will work out according to plan… his plan, that is. And everything WILL, in fact, work out!
3. I have to try to relax and let life go by its rhythm instead of getting myself too involved in the process. And sometimes even messing things up for myself.
4. As uncomfortable as it may be sometimes, there ARE people in my life! And their lives are also planned out by a greater power. I can’t determine the way their lives and my life go the way I always do with the characters in my stories.

There is a lot of letting go and letting God take over the wheel for me. After all, he alone knows best.