Earlier this week I found two empty fruit cup containers in the garbage.

Not that I regularly search my garbage, they were there, sitting right on top, foil lids still attached, evidence of a hurried consumption before Mom comes down.

There’s some information you might need as you wonder why in the world this even matters. Fruit cups in this house are only for school lunches and aren’t an everyday. They’re a ‘sometimes’ for reasons of environment and budget, etc. So this evidence of fruit cup gorging was in direct contradiction to the fruit cup rules.

Normally, this would be a shake of the head and reminder to the kids that indeed, though the rules may seem like they’re intended to keep you from the food you love, here are the reasons, here’s the rules, so that’s that.

But Fruit-Gate as I have termed my response, was more than just fruit cups. Because this week has been a week of pushback from the younger people that my husband and I have born and are raising. The sort of pushback that comes from being back at school after holidays with too little sleep, the right amount of cousin time, and snuck sugar. Oh, and Grade 9 exams coming up for the first time for our oldest.

The pushback is real.

I’m also readjusting back into new things. I’m beginning my training as a Spiritual Director, there are contracts to be fulfilled, new ministries beginning in tandem with my husband and on my own, things going on in my life that elicit a response in me that smacks of the need to control.

Anyone else feel the need to control when they’re stressed?

Just me? Ok.

So, in my stress, I recognized the rising up in me of ‘why can’t they just do what I say?!?’. Very mature, very poised, very hospitable.

This took some listening time and prayer. Laying out my complaints and petitions before the Lord. Petitions that stretched from my control over processed fruit to soon my eldest would be going out into the world and how do I know he’ll choose a church and make friends and make good choices.

Prayers and petitions tend to snowball when I get going.

Because I know, through listening to God and the input of others, that control is not my best strategy.

Control strangles where I should be releasing.

Control is a way for me to get my way when I should be looking at God’s way.

Because how many times must God have looked at his children and thought ‘why can’t they just do what I say and things will go so much easier for them?’.

That’s a sobering thought and one that helps me get things in perspective.

God doesn’t control us. That’s the nature of free will. My eldest finds this dissatisfying as he wrestles with the concept of pain and sin and free will and ‘if God just made us love him there would be no sin in the world’. Pretty good theological questions for a 14 year old.

But God doesn’t control us. That’s not to say he’s not sovereign and doesn’t reign over everything. He does. But God gives us choice. We can choose him or not, choose his path or not, choose to love others or not.

Even though God is so moved by our bad choices, we still can make them and he doesn’t take away our ability to choose.

What can I learn about God’s approach to me as I wrestle with my approach to others?

I am met with grace and forgiveness. There are consequences to my actions but God never abandons me in those consequences. He is there with me, upholding me and teaching me through it. He gently corrects me because of his great love for me. It begins and ends with love.

So, I didn’t yell over the fruit cups. And I’ve committed to praying in a new and heightened way for my son as he moves towards adulthood in the world. I can’t control what he does when an adult, nor should I. He will make his choices and find his way. I need to trust God that this good heart he has put in my son, the teaching he has and will receive, the open discussions about the hard stuff and what we learn about the nature of God, all of these things and more will give him a place to begin his journey as an adult.

As for me in my continued journey through spiritual maturity? I learn to release more and more to God, to listen to his word and Spirit and seek understanding. I dig deep into Jesus and understand that his love in me helps me to move past my own inadequacies and love others beyond myself.

And I learn that the mountains to stand upon are not built on fruit cups.