Tag: Anxiety

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In Pursuit of Peace

I began desperately asking God to teach me this principle of living easy and light He started to guide me through word searches in the scripture.  As I was looking at scriptures about peace, my heart stopped when I read the last part of Psalm 34:14: “Seek peace and pursue it.”

 

So simple it sounded…but how do you pursue peace? What does that even mean?

 

So at the end of last year I was walking around the sad little 70% off After-Christmas section “pursuing” cheap gift bags for the following year, when amid the bright Santas and decapitated snowmen and randomly orphaned ornaments a silver-glitter-edged, white wooden cutout stood eye-level with me. PEACE. That’s all it said. I walked past it the first time but I kept being drawn back to it. PEACE. It was like an invitation. And a question…How many times do I pursue cheap things instead of peace? I picked it up and assessed for a minute if what I was thinking was a result of the coffee I had obviously overdosed on or if this was actually a good idea. Yes, I will put it on my mantle…ALL YEAR LONG.  I brought it home and my husband made THAT face, you know the one he makes when I have done something ridiculous, but he thinks I’m cute anyway. So I unceremoniously shrugged and stuck the word PEACE up on my mantle and left it there.

My children, more observant than usual because they were practiced from looking for the elf on the shelf all December, saw the word right away and asked “Why is THAT up there?”  I told them that it’s because I have been praying for our house to be a place of peace and I put it up there to remind us.

After the garland came down.  After the house had returned to its “normal” state of…meh—it stayed. This one little sparkly word that sometimes taunted and teased me, sometimes anchored me, was becoming a part of our family’s pursuit.

The children would bicker and I would say “See that word on the mantle? What does that say?”

“PEACE.”

Sometimes even, I only had to point to the mantle and they would stop fussing (sometimes not). Pretty soon they started catching themselves and saying to each other with wagging fingers and a chiding tone, “See that word on the mantle? What does that say? PEACE (with a little air of condemnation). That’s what Mama wants.”

 

Who says you can’t buy peace?

I’m here to say you can…for $3 at Target after Christmas.

 

Seek peace. And pursue it.

 

That’s what David wrote while He was being pursued and oppressed by King Saul. When there was no place to rest. I love shows that depict police chasing the bad guys…you know how they always say into their radios “I’m in pursuit of a suspect…” We should run after peace this way.  Pursuit like how I run after so many things—like what God does to us.

 

David was seeking and praying for His own peace, communal peace, health, safety, and well-being— the end of the pursuit. He was tired and seeking rest and restoration of relationship so he could show his face again in public without fear for his life!  In fact, the warrior who killed Goliath and thousands of others in battle, eventually would move his capital to Jerusalem, an ancient city whose very name came to mean shalom “peace,” where peace was made possible in his Jerusalem by David’s conquering of the Philistine and Jebusite army.

 

What are you pursuing in your life right now?

 

If we want to live “easy and light,” we need to learn to seek peace and pursue it.

But when Jesus came into our world, He had a way of seeing right through people’s reputations and words—our modus operandi, our big talk and our small talk, and He saw our burdens, our hurts, our scars, our fears. He knew that shalom of community is not possible without first restoring relationship and having “peace” with God, and so he offers us the one necessary thing to meet our most crucial need—peace through His life. He humbled himself and became our shepherd servant, our sacrifice, our provider, our living water, our resurrection, our healing, our hope, our burden bearer, and yes, our peace.

 

Isaiah 53:5 “The punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.”

 

HE took the punishment that brought us peace. He is the one who made peace possible. Before that, it was just a dream, a distant memory of a barely remembered past in a garden, where we last had peace with God. He brought us back.

 

When we pursue Jesus, it is a pursuit of peace.

When we pursue peace, it is a pursuit of Jesus.

 

He is our peace. For all of us who need peace with God, and peace in our storms, and peace within our families, Jesus is who we need to be pursuing. But how do we do that? I mean really? What does it mean to seek Him out?

 

Seek peace. And pursue it.

Seek Jesus. And pursue Him.

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The Invitation

Let’s start today with a story. Just imagine…

Two sisters are planning a dinner together, and sisterly dynamics are always really interesting right? The struggle for identity in their younger years made the older one “responsible” and the younger one a little, well, let’s just say she is more carefree.  Martha had invited HIM….Jesus…no pressure. Both are planning to work together to create a spread that is delicious and pleasing to their family and friends—better than it’s ever been done before.  The evening starts off fine…both are in the kitchen chopping herbs and vegetables and preparing the main course.  Then the guests arrive, and that’s when things fall apart.  The sisters go to greet the guests but one never comes back in the kitchen to help pull things together the end! I can hear the responsible sister muttering to herself in the kitchen:

 

‘The nerve!  The meat needs basting at the same time the sauce needs stirring and the salad needs to be dressed and on the table (which by the way is not even set!)  I guess I’ll just have to do it MYSELF, since SHE is out there sitting on the floor and just relaxing with our guests and especially HIM, when I was the one that arranged this whole thing in the first place! MUST BE NICE!’

 

She hears the easy conversation, she gets angrier.  She hears laughter, her resentment builds. She hears quiet whispers of deep conversation and she explodes…publicly.

 

“Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” (Luke 10:40b)

 

But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, 42 but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10: 41-42)

 

Do you tend to identify more with Mary or Martha? What are some recent moments when this tendency has “come out” in you?

I love this story when I am feeling like Mary, comfortable in my environment, prioritizing my time with Jesus, taking time for the meaningful things in life. But I hate this story when I am feeling like Martha, abused and used and meeting everyone’s needs but my own and just simply exhausted (which is most of the time). Why do I act this way—crazy and hectic? Because stopping what I am doing would break the pace that seems just barely fast enough to keep my head above water. Plus, if others would just jump in, I would be able to be DONE ALREADY…then I could rest. I need others to join me in my pace (come on people…step it up!). Resting now would invalidate all the hard work I have just done (because I was on a roll, baby!) and I would have nothing to show for the struggle—and the struggle is REAL!

Deep breath. Inhale. Exhale.

It’s no secret we like to schedule our time with Jesus when it is convenient for us.  He gets “worked in” to our schedule when we are ready for Him, like on Sunday mornings or maybe Bible Study days. But what if He wants more from us than that two blocks of time that we routinely build in? Jesus doesn’t care much about being convenient to us. What are some convenient times that you have “scheduled” Jesus into your life.

Are you prepared to let Him into the other blocks of time in your life? Be honest.

If you said “no” you’re not alone, I did too! Only because I can’t imagine what he would look like there, in those crazy, messy places in my life. Resting with him when my kids are awake. At all. Impossible. Resting with him when I need to run errands before I pick up the kids. Impossible. There’s no time for rest. People need to eat. People need a roof over their head and that is my job! And there’s the sibling rivalry and the kids who need help and my impatience to give it. Actually I’m embarrassed to imagine Him there with me in those moments.

But aren’t you tired? What if Jesus was inviting you to curl up on the couch with a cup of coffee and just be with him. Just talk. Just listen. Just rest. What if He is calling you to tune out some of the crazy—how do you even do this?

Why does rest seem so unnatural, so low on our list of priorities?  I think it’s because our work ethic often equates rest with laziness. We are taught that to live a day means that you should “do” as much as possible, and so we try to fit more and more into the day so we will have something to show for it.  But that pace can run very much against the kingdom economy of Jesus. We need to learn what Jesus meant by telling us to rest and carry a light load. Before taking on his yoke, we have to learn how to get rid of our own load of fear and anxiety that we are currently carrying. He might be asking us to slow down and relish things…to relish Him. That is our worship. Why is that so hard for us?

I think the fear and anxiety comes because we don’t actually trust Jesus as much as we say or think we do. Jesus only cares about the important things right? And His idea of what is important can be VERY different than mine. Sometimes I feel like He doesn’t get the trivial things…money IS important because I have to pay for food. My kids success in school IS important because they need good grades to make it into a good school and that is only accomplished by hard work and diligence. Making things happen at work IS important because it creates a high quality, necessary product, or skill in our students, or builds our influence for God’s kingdom. OK… but maybe, just maybe, I am the one who needs to re-think what is important, because Jesus says there is ONLY

ONE. thing. necessary.

Look at Jesus’ gentle critique to Martha. He said her name twice. I imagine it’s the way I do when I am trying to calm down one of my hysterical children. Maybe the first time He said it she was still ranting and raving? I can hear his voice softly correcting her.

“Martha…Martha…You are anxious and troubled about MANY things—but few things are necessary, indeed only ONE.”

I always thought he was correcting and chiding Martha (which I always secretly took offense at because she was JUST trying to get supper on the table—I relate).

Here’s what I love about Jesus. He gets it. He understands I am only worried because I am trying to impress him and take care of everyone else. And yet, he tells me to stop.  Just stop. Stop and choose Him instead. Choose the ONE thing that is mandatory, necessary, for true life. Choose Jesus first, eat later. Choose Jesus first, then worry about the arrangements you need to make. Choose Jesus first, prepare later!

Are we even capable of understanding this? It’s BACKWARDS from how we have always done it!  We set a task for ourselves and then upon its completion, rest is the reward.  We do our housework and only then will we let ourselves sit down.  We work at our jobs all day so we can come home and rest. We work our whole life so we can retire in our old age and finally rest! But the invitation of Jesus is to choose rest first, rest in the middle of craziness.

I think I know what you are thinking…you would LOVE to be able to put everything aside and bask in the Word of God. You wish you had the flexibility to be able to pray through the day, but real life precludes that possibility for you. Go ahead. List the things that make prioritizing time with Jesus hard for you in this season of life. He’s not scared of that.

Strangely, the anxious days happen most often on my days off.  There was a day months ago when I wrote this:

Today, I was so anxious all day I was almost shaking.  This was almost undoubtedly initiated because my eldest daughter found and wanted to keep two toads for pets, which escaped and began “leap-frogging” all over my kitchen because and the container she found for them was not big enough. Thankfully, Rob was home and as they laughed and chased the frogs, all I could think to do was get on my computer because I had read SOMEWHERE that frogs carry salmonella (which I confirmed, they do). When the frogs were contained (in one of my matching rubbermaids that I keep the kids’ off-season clothes in…which I will never use again for clothes), I remained “jumpy” all day because every time I walked past them, they would startle and jump at me…yes, at me—I’m sure of it. Between that and driving between three appointments that I had scheduled too close to one another on my one “free” day, I was a wreck all day long.  And yet, if I were honest, all day I heard this in my head “You are anxious about many things, but only few things are needed, indeed only ONE.” 

He was inviting me to rest, and I rejected His invitation…all day long. Take a minute to reflect on ways that he has been inviting you recently. Have you in some way rejected his invitation because your life was too ________________(busy, distracting, exciting, hard)?

Truthfully, it never occurred to me that Jesus was offering Martha a solution to her anxiety by telling her to prioritize Him, by choosing time with Him, the One Thing. Put ALL the things you think are important after Him. Even your kids. Even your husband. Even your work email, your home business, and your facebook account. Everything.

It also never occurred to me that I was choosing anxiety by NOT choosing to prioritize time with Him…because I was always trying to get to Him. That was always my goal–it’s just I was going to get Him almost as a reward for doing everything else. So I never got there. Look at the last part of verse 42: “Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

Mary chose well. And I like to hope that after this episode, Martha did too.

Mary chose Jesus over preparations in the kitchen. She chose Jesus over Martha’s feelings. She chose Jesus over everything else she had planned. Why?… because He was the only thing necessary. Worth it. Worthy. Her choice was her worship. Her attention to Him was her love for Him. By choosing Jesus instead of her plans, she found peace. By letting Jesus interrupt her day, she found rest…AND, she found protection from the attacks of her demanding sister (just sayin’ for those of you who may have some of those).

Take a moment to pray for clarity on how Jesus is asking you to prioritize Him.

In what specific way might Jesus be asking you to choose Him first?

 

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The Throw Down

 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. 8 Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.

1 Peter 5:7-8

 

The Greek verb for “cast” or “to cast upon” is epirripto (ἐπιρρίπτω), which literally means to “throw down or away”—in other words this is something that takes some intentional force on our parts to get them out of our own hands and preferably far enough from us that we don’t pick them right back up again. If we can throw our burdens onto Jesus, we can trade it for on the yoke of Jesus, which is light and easy.

 

Read it again from Matthew 11:

28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

 

Epirripto is only used one other place in the New Testament. It is when Jesus is about to enter Jerusalem on the back of a donkey and everyone “casts” their coats on the back of the donkey for Jesus to sit on. Here we see the image again of heaving or throwing something onto a beast of burden and the invitation recorded in Matthew becomes even more beautifully clear. I think the crowd was unwittingly acting prophetically here. Even in the “triumphal entry” He was on His way to the cross to “carry” more than our coats, but our sin and our anxiety (more on this later!)  We can cast our cares on Him because he has already carried them to the cross—not just our sins, but all the weight and worry that living in this world places on us. We can live this way if we want to…with everything.

 

Or can we?

 

In the back of my head, I realize that am thinking, “But if I don’t take care of this (and feel stressed while doing it), then no one will and things will not get done. I CAN’T NOT worry about it!” I’m sure you never feel that way.

 

Honestly, even after reading this, I feel so frustrated.

I’m trying but I. Can’t. Let. Go.

 

But He is saying I can. And you can, but not until we understand more about the depth of His love for us. Look at the end of verse 7 back in 1 Peter again

7 Cast all your anxiety on him because He cares for you. 8 Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.

 

Why can we feel confident in casting our anxiety on God (verse 7)?

 

He LOVES us—cares for us… in a way all of us parents can understand. My daughter today woke up in a state of fear. “Look how fast the clouds are moving! I’m worried—what if there is a tornado?!”

 

(True story…Really, babe, I just need you to put your shoes on.)

 

Finally, I looked her square in the eye and said, “Do you trust me to take care of you?” She said, “Yes, but I’m still worried!”

 

Me too, baby! My heart always softens to my children when I realize how alike we really are.

But here’s the thing this little exchange taught me…

 

His caring for us is completely independent of our confidence in Him. He cares for us because He is our Father (because of Jesus). That’s it. Whether or not we keep staying tangled in fear does not impact how He is going to care for us, but if we start to ground ourselves in truth we start to see, we don’t have to be worried about the dark skies, because He’s in charge.

 

Do you feel this confident in His love to let your “burdens” be carried by Him at this point in your life? Maybe you do. Or maybe in your heart of hearts, if you were honest, you would feel something holding you back. I am becoming more and more convinced that learning to live easy and light is rooted in our understanding of God’s love and is actually essential to our freedom as followers of Christ.

 

Let’s not leave 1 Peter 5:7-8 just yet. Read it again to refresh your memory.

7 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. 8 Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.

 

Looking back at verse 8, Why do you think Peter follows this commandment/invitation with a warning to remain sober and alert (hint: read the end of verse 8)?

 

Peter is relating our ability to give our concerns over to God and live “easy and light,” (free from heaviness and anxiety and worry and fear) to our ability to resist the enemy of our soul, who seeks to devour us.  The two skills are inextricably related.  Peter is saying that if we do not remain alert, if we are distracted by anxiety, our rest is stolen from us along with everything else.

 

Have you ever been very aware of your vulnerability to the enemy? How has fear or anxiety played into that? What worries or concerns were filling your head when the enemy attacked?

 

 

Paul understood this principle.  Look at his advice for the Philippian church:

6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Phil 4:4-7)

Paul, like Peter, pleads with believers not to be anxious. Instead He says to pray.

 

Not pray and plan.

 

Not pray and worry.

 

Not pray and anything else.

 

That’s what is so exciting AND frustrating about all this…our role in it is so small.  It is simply to COME to Him and learn from Him (back to Jesus’s words in Matthew 11 again).

 

But this is not the kind of prayer that sounds good to us or others…it’s not an impressive procedure.  This is the kind of praying that makes us feel stupid. The “why am I bothering Him with this stuff” kind of praying. More and more I’m convinced that’s what He is offering to us. Peace that comes only from honestly opening our heart to God by talking to Him about our boring, yet stressful stuff and waiting for Him to lift the weight off of us.

 

Again, think about it…kids don’t have that filter. They ask about EVERYTHING from bandaids, to money, to more ketchup, to help with a shoelace…nothing is too dumb to bring to Him…where did we get the idea that He only likes to help with the big stuff, and only after we have tried everything on our own.

 

And looking back again at Philipeans 4:7 what is Paul’s experience of what happens when we do this?

 

God’s peace becomes the defense of our heart.

 

God’s peace protects us!  Think about the foolishness of it…surely He doesn’t mean trust Him for EVERYTHING? But this is truth–

It is our irrational trust that produces unfathomable peace.

 

Have you ever thought of the peace of God as protectant coating for our souls. Protection from what? From the enemy—yes, the one that Peter says prowls around like a roaring lion!

 

When humans are attacked and afraid they respond with one of two instincts—fight or flight. In the physical world these instincts help us stay alive. But what is utterly terrifying is that many of us have not developed the correct spiritual responses to spiritual threat.  And I don’t know about you, but I never thought that worrying made me more vulnerable.  If anything, I thought it made me more prepared.

 

But what these scriptures tell us is that our anxiety makes us more susceptible to the attacks of Satan! Extensive anxiety alters our spiritual sobriety and makes us less able to react in faith to the ongoing attacks of the enemy. We can be consumed by fear and worry. We can be destroyed by it. Devoured.

 

I recently read a great quote from Paul Miller’s The Praying Life:

 

“Sometimes we have to worry before we can pray.”

 

The alternative to worrying through life is worrying through prayer. In other words, we don’t need to stop worrying then pray, we need to take it to Him intentionally loading Him up with our burdens. When we tell Him what’s wrong then “throw it” (epirripto) onto Him—could it be possible that He actually takes our worry out of us in part by the process of our spoken surrendering of those things?  He does the work, and He ignites our hearts with the desire for peace, but we activate His peace and set His freedom in motion when we obey Him in this? In the “throw down.”

 

How do you want to react to being stalked by roaring lions? Will you choose to live in an alert, active posture of faith or from a self-protective stance of fear and anxiety? How can you imagine this choice playing out in your real life?

 

The instinct we need to develop is the instinct to run to the Father for protection, right?  Our reaction to fear and anxiety should be an all-out race to the heart of God. And Jesus is saying we can choose that.

 

But that choice is often really hard. After all, there are vultures to waive off, leggings to acquire, potential tornadoes in the morning (aka, my house) and meals to be cooked.  But He. Is. Right. Here.  The invitation to live easy and light is still out there.  Have you RSVP’d to His invitation yet? Yes, Jesus…I’m coming to that party! Can we let Him teach us to throw down?

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Vultures and Cold Coffee

When is the last time you felt truly carefree?…

 

Was it a place you remember?

Was it a person you were with?

Was it a time or season in your life?

 

For me, the moment was sitting outside on my back porch watching my children play, a mug of warm (luke-warm) coffee in my hands that I had heated up throughout the day because I never had time to drink the whole cup.  A frozen dinner had been thrown haphazardly in the oven and I had no one that needed my immediate attention.  Life was, in that particular moment, calm and quiet. The weather was perfect…a light breeze blowing through the trees by our house and WAIT…were those vultures in the sky?!  Circling over my toddler twins? Why yes they were.  In a moment my peace was shattered and I went into emergency mode. Now, I know my three year olds probably could have held their own against these pesky predators, but I had seen Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” in my formative years and well, it had me seeing images of my kids’ eyes getting pecked out, etc. etc…

 

I hustled the children inside to safety and threw a couple rocks for good measure at these buzzards who I would not allow to eat my children.  My carefree moment was gone…in a moment (my coffee still unfinished, I might add), replaced by fear…probably not-so-well-founded fear. And once again I withered.

 

The enemy of our soul truly seeks to steal, kill and destroy us, but I am convinced he often does that in small doses. He stealthily steals our moments of peace one by one, replacing them with fear, anxiety, busy-ness, materialism, and weights of the world that we wear so naturally like running errands, making appointments, family obligations, church commitments, and overall, the things we do that just make us “amazing” in the eyes of everyone around us.

 

I never did finish that cup of coffee. In fact…most days I don’t.

 

After all, I am the one who has to solve the problems that end up in my lap, in my home, in my email, and sometimes in my bed (at night…at 2:00am…there’s always SOMEONE needing me—good heavens). Overwhelmed doesn’t seem to cover it. Tired can’t even begin to explain this soul exhaustion that has been the culminating result of seven years of parenthood so far with about four to go until all children are in elementary school. My house is loud and rowdy and there is an injury about every five minutes—not exaggerating. We actually installed a metal first aid kit on our wall so the kids could dress their own wounds, and our oldest wants to be a doctor…also convenient.

There are moments when I feel like I am having an out of body experience, like I could see the mess and the crazy, but there was nothing I could do to stop it. And when we go out I feel like people must think something is wrong with me that I can’t keep four young children under control in the store or restaurant. Last time I had the twins in a store, one of them blocked my vision asking for a certain cereal while the other laid on the bottom of the cart and wheeled it away with his hands making a clean get away all the way to the next aisle before I turned around and said, “Where’s my shopping cart?” And it’s in those moments I try to laugh but sometimes I just feel like I am GOING TO LOSE MY EVER-LOVIN’ MIND.

It was in the middle of one of these moments of crazy that I felt the Holy Spirit whisper to my heart, reminding me of an offer that Jesus made us while walking through His own daily craziness. Matthew 11:28-30 says

 

28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

 

I desperately need an easy and light load to carry because I feel like I carry everything on my shoulders…and it’s HEAVY and it’s not good! And I honestly can’t remember the last time I rested…slept yes (in between runs to feed the baby, calm a dreaming toddler, or change wet sheets), but truly rested? It has been a while…like, hmmm…years. The problem is I have no idea how to actually rest!  I mean, it is easy to say “give it to God” but how to you take it from Him, His yoke of rest.

 

Don’t you want that? I do.

 

I want that supernatural rest that comes from carrying things loosely, from giving my burdens to Jesus. More than this thought, we are commanded to do it…over and over in scripture. But to me it reads like a humble, kind imperative more than a strict command, like a doctor’s prescription, or the way I feel when I tell my kids to calm down when they are upset. It’s like an invitation to something better.

 

Two times I had a doctor prescribe rest to me …both times I was pregnant so it was wasted because I couldn’t get comfortable enough to rest anyway.  Rest seemed and still seems like a foreign concept to me, but also at the same time, distantly familiar. It was like I used to know it but it’s gone, like the way I feel helping my children with their homework (heaven help me, I don’t remember a thing from math and my oldest is just in first grade! Wait ‘til she gets to polynomial equations— I don’t stand a chance.)

The point is, sometimes the things we used to know often seem the most elusive.  When was the last point in your life that you felt truly peaceful for more than a moment? When was the last time you were in a state of peace?

I think the Holy Spirit is challenging us to explore the offer God provided to us in Scripture to release the things that are weighing us down, load them onto the back of our Father, and truly experience the carrying of a light load even in the middle of all of our daily responsibilities.  He wants to walk with us through different areas of our heart and see what needs to be “cast on Him.”

Don’t you want to wake up with joy, ready to not just muddle through the best you can but take hold of the day with fearless joy? I know I REALLY want that.  I know I have not had that in a long time, even as someone who “trusts” Jesus, which seems too honest for me to admit. I want to live without sighing under the pressure of work, expectations, and disappointments. I want to be free from fear and anxiety. It has to be possible.

For God has not given us a spirit of fearfulness, but one of power, love, and sound judgment. 2 Timothy 1:7 HCSB

We need to be able to cast off our own fears and weights of this world so that we can be free to accept the gifts and mindset of God through the Holy Spirit!  Instead of being afraid, God is calling us, His children, to walk in POWER, in LOVE, in SOUND JUDGMENT…this should be our normal state.  This is His offer to us. I don’t know about you, but am ready to take him up on it.

So let’s do a quick snapshot of where we are right now…
What words describe your “normal” state currently:

What daily experiences do you think contribute to the positive emotions? Take a second and list them out…

 

What do daily experiences you think the negative emotions stem from most often? Take a second and list them out…

 

 

So many people out there will say “self care” is maximizing the positive things and minimizing the negative, the stressful…I don’t think this is God’s approach. You know why? BECAUSE the hard, stressful things are the NECESSARY things!  It’s not like I can just “minimize” my children (even though they can be stressful) or minimize the need to take care of my students (I love those “kids” I teach like my own children too).

So how is His approach different? That’s my question…Are you living “easy and light” right now—walking with an easy yoke and a light burden? Are you living in a spirit of love, power, and a sound mind? If so, what is your secret? If not, what do you think is holding you back?

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Easy and Light

I never considered myself an anxious person—I was always pretty laid back

But the birth of our fourth child last Spring was a bit traumatic. When we came home with her I found myself jittery and worried all the time. I started having panic attacks…I didn’t know what they were. All I knew was that I couldn’t breathe. I could hear myself breathing in and out but my lungs didn’t feel like they were taking air in. I felt like I was being strangled. When my husband was home, he would just hold me and tell me it was ok, that I was breathing even if I didn’t feel like I was. He would pray for me and tell me to slow my breathing down. After about two-five minutes, the attack would subside. It made no sense to me! Hadn’t everything turned out just fine? Wasn’t the baby ok? Then what was my problem!? I didn’t feel like I had the right to be anxious. I felt guilty for having this physical response that was in my mind, not even tied to any lasting tragedy or loss. It made no sense to me. I waited for it to go away, six months later it remained.

During this time, any small stress could potentially freeze me or send me into panic mode. Any hiccup in my plans or surprise illness in my kids would create a cyclone of worry and fear. And yet, the voice of God, a promise of peace. It spoke so softly at first, it was like a whisper of a far off hope. It took root in me, this seed of a promise. It became the prayer I would pray through strangled tears, like an accusation, like a plea from a beggar, “Lord, you promised me peace. Why can’t I find it.” So I started begging God to show me what was happening to me and to teach me about peace in the middle of chaos (because that’s what my life is right now with four kids and both my husband and I working).

I was so desperate, I took a day off of work and I began to search. Not just reading my Bible, but a Bilbo Baggins strap on your pack and set off for a distant mountain search for peace and joy and relief from this crippling fear in scripture. Who had it? How did they get it? And from the first day I sat down with my coffee and began this journey, I could sense Jesus sitting there with me, showing me in his word and through gentle reminders in my everyday life, how He could BE my peace and He could help me to carry a light and easy burden.  I wanted this more than anything else, I needed to know he was present and that He was able to actually handle every heavy thing I carried. He asked me to write as I learned, to write as a way of learning…I’m a teacher by trade so I’m used to building curriculum, but I didn’t know what I was writing at first. Now I am convinced that this thing He has been teaching me is something He wants for all of us…a light load, an easy burden. And it’s not just a possibility, it’s a necessity for our survival in this world.