When I turned 8, my parents divorced and I felt hurt and confused and mad. You wouldn’t have seen my anger. I stuffed it inside. I even blamed myself for my parents’ breakup.

But I was just a kid.

A lonely kid.

One day I decided I could control the situation and get them remarried. I wanted them back together. So I did what made the most sense at the time.

I hunted for four-leaf clovers.

Pretzeled on the grass in my front yard, I scrutinized clover after clover after clover after clover. At least a hundred. No luck.

So I began faking it, holding a three-leaf clover with a one-leaf clover to make four. But I knew it wasn’t the real thing and whatever I wished would not come true.

Then I found it. I bonafide four-leaf clover.

I couldn’t believe it.

I plucked that four-leaf clover, held in my hands like a treasure and counted the leaves over and over and over to prove myself right.

I made my wish.

I wished that my parent would get married again and we’d be together — mom, dad, my brother and me. I wanted control. Four-leaf clover control.

You want to hear the amazing thing: My little girl wish came true.

 Within a few months my parents remarried.

I controlled their happiness and mine or so I thought. They still yelled and pouted and forgot about me. They didn’t mean to forget my brother and me. They were wrapped up in their own pain.

I get that now. Back then I felt rejected. I may have gotten my wish and even felt a sense of control, but I wasn’t in control and not until many, many years later did I give up the illusion that I was in charge.

I’m not. You’re not. But God is. And I’m better than OK with that because ultimately He alone is the one in control of my life, your life, the whole world.

Control issues still rear up once in awhile. I disappear in my hurt but gone is the illusion of control.

Question: Do you relate? Have you tried to control an outcome to avoid the pain?

You Are Beautiful!