Control

I don't struggle with control in many areas of my life. I am content in knowing that God is in control of all things and that all things work together for good to those who love Him.
I do have a giant issue with control in one specific area however. I hate that I can not control how people perceive me.
I don't know why, but somewhere along the line I began defining myself through the eyes of others. As though perception is reality. This is a dangerous state of mind, because the fact is you can't please everyone and sometimes in this life, we will be judged and perceived incorrectly, no matter how hard we try.
A few months ago I held a Christian woman accountable for some things that were laid upon my heart. I didn't know her well at all, but I couldn't shake the feeling that I was suppose to confront her, lovingly, about some un-godly activity in her life. I am HORRIBLE with confrontation. I can't speak, I get backed into a corner, and the thoughts I find easy to write disappear quickly from mind when it comes time to speak. I decided to write her, so that I could properly express everything I was thinking and feeling.
The response was not good.
I was called everything under the sun...from hypocrite to judgemental...at one point she told me I was the exact opposite of Christ. It completely broke me. To this day I feel guilty about how things happened. When I wrote her, I did so intending to be supportive and loving, caring more about her character than her feelings but when she perceived me as being an ignorant, god-less, moron, I believed her. I wrote her again, apologizing, telling her it wasn't my intent to hurt her. I wrote her a third time to once again offer a helping hand and tell her there was no reason why we couldn't live in peace with one another...but to this day she wants nothing to do with me. I see her periodically and she is as cold as stone, causing guilt fill my guts.
I spoke in detail with trusted friends before and after the event and I was affirmed of doing the right thing.
To this day, I'm not quite sure that I did. But I guess just because something was hard, doesn't mean it wasn't right.
In my mind, I envision this woman's story about me. I picture her slandering my character to mutual friends, I shutter at the thought of how much she dislikes me.
The same is true for our current situation. We're moving out of a house before selling it, not in an effort to scam anyone, but because of an inability to live within our means, and an un willingness to give up what's important any longer: Time together as a family.
In my heart I know the decision we are making is a right one. I know that we have worked tirelessly to avoid this time in our lives from coming, but it came, regardless. I know that we have overcome so much over the past 24 months, eliminating debts, making sacrifices, sharing a car while commuting sometimes over 3.5 hours daily to make things work...I know that the grass will truly be greener on the other side and I believe that God will work a miracle in our situation. Still, there are those on the outside looking in who shake their heads, and although that shouldn't bother me, it does! I wish it didn't, but it does...
I recognize this joy-robbing mindset as being sinful and I am praying it out of my life. Worry and paranoia are not of God and I have received SO much more encouragement than negativity, for which I am eternally grateful. Still, the frowning faces seem to outweigh the kind in my mind. I hope I can come to a point in my life where I walk in boldness, defining myself by Christ alone and being confident in rightness even when it feels wrong.
In the mean time, I will pray the prayer of St. Augustine who said, "O Lord, deliver me from this lust of always vindicating myself."