Welcome back to the Promises of God Podcast, Episode number 45. My name is Tracie Rollins. I want to thank you so much for spending time with me as we learn and take action on God’s promises in life. This one series is about the changing seasons of life, and we’re working out of the momentum devotional offered by Bible journaling ministries titled Seasons. You can learn more about Bible journaling with their free 10-day course at Bible, Julian ministries.com today we’re talking about trying to control the season that you’re in, and our verse is Daniel, Chapter Two verse 21 I’ll read that out of the World English Bible. It says he changes the times and the seasons. He removes kings and sets up kings. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding. The first time I realized I had no control was when my son was born at two pounds, 6.4 ounces as a preemie in the ICU.
You see, he was born about almost 11 weeks early. And I tried so hard to keep him inside of me. I tried everything, you know, the doctors put me on bed rest. I arrested, I stay, I didn’t do anything. I laid down on the bed, and it was, you know, awful. Actually to be honest with you, I don’t really like to watch TV much, but when you’re singing in bed, you know, I would read a book, um, and I would watch TV and be completely bored when my husband went to work and I would just sit there in the bed cause I wasn’t allowed to move and I didn’t do anything to move. And when I went to see my doctor on Monday, cause they had released me on Friday, so I could have it wasn’t Monday. No, I don’t remember what day it was.
But I know that I was by myself, so it must have been like they must have released me on Monday and then had me go back in like a couple of days later. I don’t have the calendar in front of me on that, that series of events, but they let me go. I was supposed to see my doctor two days later. I wanted to see my doctor two days later, and they immediately readmitted me to the hospital, flew me in a helicopter to another hospital that had a better an ICU and a few days later I gave birth to my son. I could not keep him in me. I tried so hard. I did everything that the doctors wanted me to do, but I had no control. And that was the first time that I truly understood that I didn’t have control over, that I could do my very best and to play by the rules to do all the good things, to be as healthy as possible.
But it just didn’t happen like he was born early in, in praise God for that because had he been born normally, he probably wouldn’t be alive today. So I do believe that there is a purpose for everything. And I do like to be in control. I’m not going to lie. I loved it. I love to be in control of my life. I don’t want to feel out of control. And I know that God’s in control, but sometimes I want to be in my, I want to control it myself. I’ll be honest; I’m not going to lie. Um, I still struggle with, with control. I try even to control some of the things around me. Now. I’m not like the biggest control freak ever. I have learned over time, especially with the birth of my son, um, who is in control, and that is our Lord.
God is in control, and I know that, but I’m human too, and I am sinful, and I do like to be in control, and I struggle with it honestly. And it’s something that I’m, you know, always working towards. But I do like to be in control of things, and both my boys, they have been dancers for years, and then that’s not something boys normally do in our society. And believe me, they have been teased for it on so many occasions. People have been mean to them, picked on and bullied them all that they work so hard and to use their gifts to encourage, inspire and bring joy to those that they meet and who observe them. They don’t know their lives. But my boys try very hard to inspire people, especially younger boys, to get into the arts. A lot of times, our society will.
I don’t; I don’t think our society lifts people up when, when we do things that are outside the norm, I think we’re getting better at it as a society. I can see that. I think what we’re doing with girls in stem programs are, is fantastic. We don’t have stuff like that for boys, especially as it relates to boys and art. Unfortunately, it’s not there. It’s something that we need to work on as a society. And as you are passionate about doing that, that’s great. In late 2018 saw this massive change in my son. Okay. Cause he had wanted to be a professional dancer at one point in his life. We invested thousands; I’m not kidding you. Thousands of dollars in his dance program and instructors and private lessons and he, he’s outstanding. He’s still good. I’ll be honest with you. He’s an excellent dancer.
In fact, he had so many local golf ridges and a university’s suggesting that he should try out for their programs and talked about scholarships and stuff like that. So he was, he was right. He still is good. Um, but in 2018, right before he graduated, so he was graduating in 2019 this year. And at the end of 2018, I just started seeing a change. I started seeing him where instead of attending his extra lessons that were included in our encompassing package, right, with our dance studio that we belong to. If you buy like three classes, you might as well purchase unlimited pass because it’s the, it’s you save money if you, if you buy the unlimited pass. So he had the unlimited pass, and he could go to ballet, and he could go to hip hop, and he could go to jazz. He could do anything that he wanted to, but in the, and he used to, he used to go all the time.
He was a member of their dance program, their competition team. We took them to other states to compete. I mean, he was, he was that good. In fact, both my boys are really good and not to brag, but they are really good, and they really do a light at the room and it’s so fun to see them because it just isn’t something that you see a lot of, especially in as the kids get older, into high school programs. It’s very rare to see a boy do dancing. So it was neat to see him. And at the end of 2018 and I just started seeing a change in my oldest son, he’s stopped going to the extra lessons. He even missed some of his classes, and I started taking on other areas of responsibility in his life, meaning he went and worked for Chick-Filet for a while and took on more hours there so he couldn’t do dance and he just started like drifting away from dance.
So I had a lot of conversations with him. I tried to encourage him to keep dancing. I tried to encourage him to seek the opportunities that he would get in college because we had talked to some campus reps and they were talking about how much they needed boys in the dance program and how, um, scholarships were available for that if he was interested in. So I would, you know, let them know these auditions are coming up there. If you don’t go, you’re going to miss out. And I would try to like encourage him because I, I feel like my kids need to make their choices. I make choices as a parent. They get to make choices as, as a kid. And I don’t want to tell them what to do with their career. I was trying to guide them, and so I was trying to guide him in more of a controlling way than maybe I should’ve.
But you know, the deadlines came in the way. He didn’t apply. He didn’t, Dan, he decided to hang up his dancing shoes. He came to me, and he said, I’m, I want to be in nutrition. I want to become a physician assistant. And I’m not going to dance anymore. And that’s, that’s just what I want to do with my life. And, and I think that his future goal, and I know that will probably change, but I believe that his future goal is reasonable. It’s pretty exciting to see that he would have a goal like that. And if he needs a hang up his dancing shoes so that he can focus on that goal, then I’m going to let him do it. And it was so hard. Oh my gosh. When he told me that, you know, the last performance I would see is him as a senior.
It was hard. It was hard. It was confusing. And it was hard to hear him say that because, for the last few years, he had just really explained like, you know, just how much passion he had for dance. He danced all the time. I mean when he wasn’t, you know, at school or he wasn’t engaged with a video game with a friend who was dancing, you know, and they would, they would go outside and they film videos of them dancing and they’d publish it to things like musically or whatever the apps were or they, he loved dancing and I just thought that he would be dancing into his college time. I thought he would be in the dance program there and maybe do as nutrition as well and then eventually go to become a PA. I’ve, I was trying to figure out a way where he could work it all together in a lot of times I was thinking, why did I spend thousands of dollars on this dance program if he wasn’t going to do it in college. There was a lot, a lot of emotion, a lot of frustration, a lot of curiosity and none of that was like, I didn’t like yell at him. We didn’t have that conversation, but it was a lot of concern. A lot of this is what she said he wanted to do. I understand it’s time to change. I get that. But I don’t want you to have any regrets. And a lot of this as a parent was me telling him, you get the shot right and you’re ready now and people need you now. And if you give up the shot, then you have to be okay with that. And he was okay with it. He was okay with it. And so I just let them go. Like I just let it go. Didn’t matter all of the investment that we had in his dance programs.
I mean honestly, just the investing in the dance programs made him like hugely contributed to the man he is today. I’m so proud of him. I’m so blessed. Excited. We had the resources to be able to spend that on him. We did a lot of sacrificing to allow our kids to dance, a huge amount of sacrifices. But I think that it helped them. It helped them become the men that they are today. And I’m so proud of them. In May of 2019, I just, I got to sit and watch his last performance, and I did not cry. I did not cry. I would cry, but I had come to I think a mature, maybe more mature way of seeing things and realized that what he was doing in his life was exactly what he needed to do and I supported his decision 100%, and so I watched him say goodbye to his friends.
I watched him thank his teachers, and then I watched him hang up his dancing shoes. Dakota’s season of dance wasn’t supposed to last, but it did prepare him for the next stage of his life. The investment in years of lessons didn’t prepare him to dance professionally. Instead, it contributed to the man he is today, and he is so ready for his next season. This week, I want you to ask yourself if you try to control the seasons of life instead of recognizing who is in control and if that sounds depressing and makes you feel like life is meaningless and why even bother, I would encourage you to do a study on the book. It’s a wisdom book called Ecclesiastes, and you can learn more about that in episode 42 of the podcast. If you’ve been struggling to try to control everything in your life and you feel like it’s wearing you down, give it to God. You’re not promised tomorrow. Romans 6:23 says, the wages of sin is death, but the free-gift of God is eternal life in Jesus, our Lord. So turn to Him, confess your sins, and follow his will and your life, and you will feel the love of Christ that surpasses all understanding. I am super excited to wrap up the series with you next week as we discuss embracing the season that we’re in and I will talk to you in the next episode of the Promises of God Podcast. Have a blessed day. Good Bye.
Episode 045: Stop Trying to Control Your Seasons
