Fences can make me scream

Here's a post I read several months ago that I wanted to share with you sometimes. It's called "Don't Fence Me In" and it strikes a chord with me, especially to this comment:

No one wants to feel like they’re being controlled, especially me. The moment I feel that someone is trying to master me, I check out of the relationship. If I’m unable to flee, I sit on the urge to scream, “I’m pretty sure I got up this morning and put on my big girl panties, so why are you always telling me what to do???”

The article begins from a parenting perspective where it talks about how we try to control our kids and how impossible a goal it is. It's a short article, more expressing a struggle in this area than anything, but finishes with some noteworthy thoughts.

Maybe you don’t have children and maybe you don’t feel the need to control others. However, you may be dealing with anger over the feeling of being controlled. In overseas living, we’re all asked to submit to something—whether it’s your organization that tells you which beverages you can and can’t sip or slurp, your host country that runs you through a medical test like an animal so you can get a residence permit, your supporters telling you how you can and can’t spend your money, or your husband who doesn’t think visiting your home country for Christmas is a good idea.

Issues like this can so easily creep up on us, and if we’re not careful we let bitterness surround us like barbed wire. It’s hard to get out . Even though submission to God-given authority is good and right, it can be painful at times. 

Yes, to serve God in Japan we have to submit to our organisation and their rules (for example home assignments that disrupt our lives considerably), submit to visa restrictions, submit to living in a country where we don't speak the language well or understand the culture, submit to living in a city that is way larger than we're comfortable with. 

I guess I haven't thought about it much in those terms, but sometimes it does irritate.  What helps is remembering the goal—why are we doing this "hard thing"?