Woven

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This morning, upon turning to July 4th in "A Mother's Prayer" mini daily calendar, I read:

 

"In the midst of the praying, it is comforting to remember that God considers families important.  Before he called a nation, he created a family." ~Quin Sherrer

 

Of course I was first drawn to the word "nation" with today being Independence Day, but then when the quote ended on "family," so did my thoughts rest there. 

 

My family is currently on hold so to speak...at least temporarily.  With my extended family this is true as we've all been scattered about the different states of the nation, each one taking a little needed space to just breathe while we all individually deal with the losses and struggles we've had to face over the past few years.  For my immediate family, we feel on hold as we wait in prayer for the Lord to move and open the door to adding more children to our midst. 

 

With my world seeming on hold for so long, life had begun to feel stagnant, like I was being cut off from the deepest desires of my heart - my dreams of writing, of having more children, and of needing those deeper and more meaningful relationships in my life.

Shifted

As I’m sitting here sipping my morning cup of coffee, the rain pouring down outside and a cool breeze bristling through the branches of the trees, I’m feeling refreshed and peaceful.  Just like the rain is a reprieve from the hot, muggy days we’ve been experiencing, Jesus has been a reprieve to my soul.  I just finished reading the last pages of what has been an amazing book – "Stressed-Less Living," by Tracie Miles and I truly can’t believe that this life changing twelve week journey, with all the incredible woman of Melissa Taylor's Online Bible Studies and Proverbs 31 Ministries, is already coming to a close.  I’m not ready for it to end.

I remember, when considering going down this path, feeling like perhaps I should skip this study and rejoin for the next one because I was going to be so busy during those twelve set weeks…I almost have to laugh at myself now - knowing what I’ve learned since then; especially in reading the last chapter and when considering the reflection verse this week:

"Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed.  Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her." ~Luke 10:41-42 

Boy am I glad that the Lord kept me from that mistake – from being Martha!  I was going to choose the “many things” when what I needed most was “only one thing” – Jesus.  Praise the Lord he did not allow me to travel down that familiar sun parched road again!  Even though I am certain that he would not have abandoned me, I am equally sure that I would not have experienced the renewal and growth that I have spiritually and emotionally and I certainly would not have the peace in my heart that he has provided me with through this journey...

Breaking Point

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This week in Melissa Taylor’s Online Bible Studies we studied chapter 10: “Broken for Breakthrough,” in the book “Stressed-Less Living by Tracie Miles.  As one of our blog hop topics, we were asked to write about a breaking point in our life.  For mine, I’m going to share with you all a previous post of mine that I had written last August, just a few months before discovering Proverbs 31 and the online Bible studies.  I think that through it you will see that it was no coincidence that I “stumbled across” these studies just as they were getting ready to begin the “Let. It. Go.” book.  At that time, I was definitely at a breaking point in my life – struggling with physical health problems, fear, lingering post-partum depression, stress-eating, relational and family stress, and on top of all of that, I had fallen away from my close, daily relationship with our Lord.  It was also only a couple months after my Mom had open-heart surgery to repair a birth defect that had gone undiagnosed and as a result had almost killed her…just one month after I originally wrote this post, she died…God turned me back to him knowing how much I was going to need him just a few short weeks later.  God is good. 

 

(from August ’12)

I spent much of my life struggling to hide and stuff down the pain that I felt, so that on the outside, I'd look strong and unbreakable; but it was all a front. Truth was, inside, my pain and sorrow continually cut like a knife, destroying me slowly one tiny piece at a time. I did not always know the Lord, nor have I always understood that my daily struggles in the world could be healed through His Word. While sometimes I find myself briefly falling back into my old habits, the Lord is always there to pick me up and remind me of His truths...

Spiritual Vitamins

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It seems that lately I’ve had so many questionable feelings, to the point where I can feel no more; only numbness.  The conflicting emotions have slowed my brain like a drug, taking over the realization that it is my turn to lead this dance.  Instead, I find myself waltzing around in a circle of confusion, battling myself every step of the way.  It’s as though a civil war has erupted inside of me and I’m frozen right in the crossfire of my own thoughts.  I sit here lost in the whirlwind of arrows buzzing by, not knowing which one is pointing in the right direction.  I try to find my way, but the smoke from the bombardment of mixed feelings has stolen my sense of direction and is slowly smothering me.  I run this way and that, finding myself advanced to the front line, where there are no more trenches to shelter me from the battle, only an open field of illusional freedom staring me in the face.

I wrote that sixteen years ago, as a senior in high school who was facing graduation and the prospect of going out into the world on my own for the first time.  I share it with you today because, to me, it illustrates what life looks like when facing it without God…or at least a life without leaning on His strength, power, and wisdom for help and guidance.   It is a painting of a battle met in confusion and ending in defeat because it is one that we can only recognize and win in Him.  It is the battle that is raging all around us for our hearts, our minds, and our souls - the spiritual warfare that the Bible speaks of and warns us about...

Lay Down My Pride

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This morning, while reading chapter six of “Stressed-Less Living” by Tracie Miles, an image came to light and illuminated an important message for me – one that I was hoping to express here to all of you.  However, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to sit down and begin to write out those thoughts until this evening, I became worried that the inspiration and clarity I felt would drift away like a cloud on a windy day, just as so many of the messages like this one had before it.  That has proven to be one of my biggest obstacles that I’ve had to face in my writing – being able to retrieve inspired thoughts when the time finally comes in which I’m able to write.  All too often I find myself becoming distracted and frustrated to the point that what was once so clear in my mind, has now become fuzzy and disjointed.  Even though I was on guard of this happening today, I still found myself falling victim to it yet again and the reason why is simple – even though I’d prayed for clarity to remain, I had not put on the full armor of God.

“Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.  For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” ~Ephesians 6:11-12

Satan has sure done his homework in knowing just the right time to begin his assault in my life and on my mind.  He chooses his flaming arrows wisely and hits his targets with astounding accuracy – yes, Satan is a master when it comes to the art of destruction.  His attacks have come frequently and swiftly as of late.  With every revelation, motivation, inspiration from God, has been another bombardment from Satan, leaving me overwhelmingly fatigued, foggy-minded, and frustrated - all generally not feelings in which God’s Word can easily be activated in our lives.

Lord, I put on the belt of truth around my waist, and the breastplate of righteousness in place, so that I may stand firm with my feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.  Lord, I also take up the shield of faith, with which I can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one, and I put on the helmet of salvation and take up the sward of the spirit – your Word Lord – so that I will be alert and ready for his assault.  Lord, I thank you for the protection in which you have provided from the evil one and I give you all the glory that comes from this victory, in Jesus name, Amen.

Last week, I shared with all of you one of the areas in which Satan has been aiming his assault at in my life, starting all the way back in grade school – the flaming arrows of independence and pride – arrows in which struck and stuck when I found myself struggling with trust and hurt caused by broken friendships and bullying.  Through that experience I was deceived into believing that it was easier to just go it alone because surely this was easier than the betrayal and hurt that can result from depending on others, and those thoughts and feelings were continually fed by the world and by Satan, until I believed that dependence on anything or anyone is weak and I couldn’t be weak because to become weak meant being vulnerable, and being vulnerable meant getting taken advantage of and ultimately hurt.  And so, out of this marathon for independence came strength – an unhealthy strength in myself, and from that grew pride – a blinding pride to God in my life...

NEVER ALONE

This time last year my mom had just undergone open-heart surgery in wake of discovering that what she had been passing off as emotional stress and anxiety, was actually congestive heart failure due to a birth defect in her aortic valve that had gone undiagnosed.  May last year was a tough month to say the least – having received the completely unexpected bad news, worrying that she wasn’t even going to make it through surgery, the long days at the hospital of watching her go through so much physical and emotional pain and feeling completely helpless about it all.  It was all something I was definitely not prepared for…but she did in fact come home, and on Mother’s Day too.

This May is all very different.  There’s been no unexpected bad news, there’s been no major surgeries, and there’s been no long days at the hospital…and yet this May is still tough.  This May is still tough because, even though I will be home for yet another Mother’s Day, my mom won’t be there this time.  This Mother’s Day, for the first time, I won’t have her to celebrate with and honor- not in person anyway, only in memory because eight months ago and exactly four months after her coming home from surgery, my mom had a major heart attack and went home to be with the Lord.  So now, here I find myself one whole year later facing a whole new May and a whole new Mother’s day - one without my mom.  Who knew so much could change so quickly?
 
Though I’ve heard the phrase, “life can change in an instant,” a million times and seen it play out countless times in other’s lives and in the movies, I never imagined it’d feel quite like this.  So much has changed and yet the world just keeps ticking on like nothing ever even happened.  Sometimes I find myself wishing that I could just push a pause button and freeze frame my life so that I can take a few deep breaths in complete and utter motionlessness and silence.  Doesn’t that sound completely wonderful?  A moment in which there is nothing else to do and nothing else to think about except to just breath…in, and then out…in, and then out…ahhh…that would be pure bliss!  Can you imagine?

As I’m sitting here imagining that for myself, I’m reminded that I have actually experienced bliss like this before.  While our lives may not have come stock with a magic remote in which we can control our universe (darn it, I know!),  we do however have access to something even better than that but which works similarly, and that something is the Lord our God – creator of all things and master of the universal remote, so to speak.

Mirror, Mirror

As I’ve sat here on my bed brainstorming ideas for this week’s blog topics, I keep finding myself pausing and staring off in thought, only to then find myself fixating on the full length, double- mirrored closet doors across the room in front of me with the reflection of myself staring right back at me as if obviously, but silently saying, “You already know what you need to write about!”  And of course my reflection's right - I do.  The topic becomes more and more obvious to my mind every time the reflection in those darn mirrors becomes clearer and clearer to my eyes.  The unfortunate thing here is that, what’s also become clearer and clearer, is an anxiousness that is rising in my chest and threatening to overwhelm me with the possibility of sharing this topic so publicly. 

With this anxiousness, the question then arises, should I address a topic for the “Stressed-Less Living” study/book, when doing so causes me to stress?  Again, unfortunately for me, the un-refutable answer to that question is yes because before I started writing I’d prayed for God to lead my pen and not let it go astray, and as many times as I’ve attempted to write on other topics, my mind and gaze keep finding their way back to that mirror and my pen back to that topic…that topic who’s truth looms before me in those mirrors...that topic which is blaringly obvious in the reflection that lies there…that topic in which I’ve continually denied, but can no longer hide…the truth that I’ve had a difficult time admitting openly, though I’ve already admitted it to myself long ago…alright, out with it already! – I am a stress-eater and as a result I’m over weight.  There.  I said it.

It hasn’t always been this way – me eating in response to the stress in my life.  In fact, it used to be the opposite.  In my college years there was a point that I'd became as thin as a rail as a result of not wanting to eat when stressed, but that’s all definitely changed now.  The question is why?  What changed, and when?  Well, as Tracie says on page 49 of “Stressed-Less Living,” “In order to embark on the journey of turning our stressors over to God and letting him replace them with peace, we must first figure out exactly what those stressors really are.”  Which is exactly what reading this book and participating in this study is doing for me and, as it turns out, it's leading to having to take a hard look into a mirror from my past – one from four years and nine months ago to be exact – the time in which I became pregnant with my daughter.

During that time, there just so happened to be many stressors in my life.  Just a few months before, we had made the major decision to pack everything up and leave sunny San Diego to return to our home area in North Idaho.  This was something we’d felt led by God to do, but it also meant a lot of emotional stress by forcing me to come face to face with the past I’d been running from for so long.  In moving, we also found ourselves faced with an uncertain financial picture, as my husband went from being a regularly paid employee to self-employed in what turned out to be a fast dying market.  It also left us with no health insurance (not at all stressful when pregnant with your first baby), and required my husband to have to travel out of state (which meant being gone for weeks at a time) to get enough work to stay afloat. 

Then there was an old neck injury I had acquired years before in a car accident, which conveniently and suddenly flared up just weeks before becoming pregnant, and with it came the unwanted and equally inconvenient advice of my chiropractor to cease all exercise until he could get things back in check – problem being, pregnancy doesn’t really lend itself to fixing spinal injuries.  It’s actually pretty good at the opposite!  And here I am still, almost five years later, and I have yet to be freed from that flare up and have since been told that a lot of the exercise restriction will remain for life (the injuries from giving birth are a contributing factor).

In addition to all of that, I felt really lonely.  Not only was I left alone due to my husband working out of state most of the time, but our move across states had left us with little to no support system.  We hadn’t fully plugged into a new church or made any new and ever-so-important Godly relationships yet.  And then when you add in all those pregnancy hormones on top of it all, I was left with one big recipe for stress-eating!

All-in-all, there was certainly cause for me to become stressed, but what I’m learning from the “Stressed-Less Living” study/book is: “it is not the stressful situations in and of themselves that cause our stress but the way we process and handle those stressful situations.” (pg. 37), and I definitely didn’t handle them positively.  The way I processed it was by trying to ignore it all together and by trying to mask it by seeking out my needed security and comfort through food...I processed my stress with processed foods!  Does anyone else find this ironically funny?!

#Blessed

The new OBS I’m participating in for the Tracie Miles book “Stressed-Less Living” has really impacted me and, even though I’ve already completed and posted on this week’s blog topic “Stressed-Less,” I kept feeling led to post on the “#Blessed” topic as well, in which we were challenged to start a list of things God has blessed us with – to start with five things and then add to it over time.  I knew when I read the topics that this would be a helpful thing for me to do because, as Tracie says in the book, “I was so caught up in my stresses and problems that I was discounting all those blessings and favors from God.” (pg. 19)  And then when I started reading all the awesome blog hop posts written on “#Blessed,” I was so blessed by them, that again, I felt led to write another blog.  Ultimately though, it was when I turned my devotional calendar to today’s date, and this is what I found, that I knew I had to follow through.

For those of you who are visiting my blog for the first time and/or don’t know me well, probably aren’t aware of the fact that I lost my mom pretty unexpectedly seven months ago now, tomorrow.  Shortly after her death, while searching through my old photo bin, I came across this calendar devotional:

It was something that my mom gave me for my baby shower for my daughter back in ’09, but I had tucked away and forgotten about when we had moved states just a few short months after our daughter’s birth.  Finding and using it, in this first year without my mom, has been such a daily comfort and blessing to me!   So this calendar, and today’s message in it, is Blessing #1 for me.  I just love God’s perfect timing! 

Blessing #2: (and these aren’t in any particular order of importance or anything) is my puppy Teak.

I’ve wanted a puppy for around twenty years or so now and he finally became a part of our family in January of this year.  He is not a perfect little puppy by any means and often has become a large source of my recent stress due to potty training and all the other demanding needs that go along with owning a new puppy.  But he is such a cute, fun, and long awaited blessing as well, which is what I need to remember and focus on when I’m cleaning up the millionth potty on the floor or taking him for yet another emergency vet visit because he eats everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING!...but yes, despite those added stressors, I just love him and feel so blessed that we’re able to afford having him in our life in this economy.

Blessing #3:  our dog Coral

With her too, there have been times that I’ve been more focused on the stress she creates, then the blessing she has brought into our lives.  Bringing home our new puppy has really helped open my eyes to what such a wonderful dog she is, and just how lucky we were to have found her.  She is a rescue dog.  She was found wandering the streets in San Bernadino, CA and brought to a human society in which they only keep the animals for one week before killing them.  When she wasn’t claimed or adopted, she was moved to death row, but a bichon rescue in L.A. saved her, only then to do the same thing one week later.  This is when a pet rescue in the Seattle area stepped in and had her flown here, where we “happened” across her at an adoption day at Petco and ended up bringing her home.  She is the most loving, calm, patient and loyal dog I’ve ever known and it is truly us, not her, that is incredibly lucky to have her as a part of our family.

Blessing #4 & 5: my husband and our daughter

My daughter - because all children are truly a “gift from above,” as it says in James 1:17.  And also because she is here today as a perfectly healthy, fun-loving, little girl with a gift for gab - often a source of stress for this quiet, methodical Mamma, but truly a blessing nonetheless!   (For those of you who are new here, she had a very complicated birth and spent the first week of life in the NICU.) 

My husband - because after nearly thirteen years of marriage, he still stands by my side and loves me for who I am – frantic mess and all – and is one of the most hardworking and giving people I know.  After a long week at work earning money to provide for his family (Blessing #6 – my husband’s job), he’s pictured here putting in more hard work on some projects for our daughter’s room (Blessing #7 – extra funds in a tough economy to be able to afford home projects, and really also Blessing #8 – our daughter’s room, because this house was only a one bedroom for the first couple years after she was born and boy am I glad that’s not the case anymore!)

So that’s three more blessings than I'd intended to list for today, but that’s just another indicator at how truly blessed I am!  I’m so glad that I decided to take a bit more time today to follow through on the leading of writing this list.  Doing so really has brought a renewed appreciation and joy for the life and blessings God has granted me!  If you too have found you’ve been discounting the favor of God in your life and lost the peace and joy in your heart, why not give this “#Blessed” list thing a try?  As Tracie says in the intro to her book, “you have nothing to lose and a life to gain.” (pg. 15)

Stressed-Less

When the online Bible study (OBS) for the book “Let. It. Go.” was coming to a close I thought I’d have no doubts as to whether or not I wanted to continue being a part of this online community of woman by signing up for future studies – I thoroughly enjoyed it, learned so much, felt so blessed to be a part of it, and loved the ability and flexibility of doing a study online at home, so signing up for the next one sure seemed like a no-brainer to me.  However, when the time came to actually sign-up, I had hesitation.  Truth be told, I’ve tended to be a “100% or nothing” kind of person and I often set high expectations for myself in everything I do.  Recognizing that I was heading into a very busy couple of months in which I already had an overwhelming amount of commitments, I had reservations that I could maintain my usual standard of 100%, and therefore felt I could be setting myself up for failure – something of which I’ve had a pattern of shying away from all too often…and yet I’m here – writing my first blog for the OBS of the book “Stressed-less living” by Tracie Miles. 

What some of you are probably wondering at this point is why – why did I choose to do this study?  Well, I wish I could say that it was because I’d recognized my unreasonable expectations of myself or that I wanted to break my fear of failure cycle, or even at the very least that I’d realized how utterly ridiculous it was to not do a study on stress due to having too much stress lying ahead already, because really, how funny is that?! Yes, those would all have been fantastic reasons to write about.  But no, another truth be told, I was looking at the study as a “keep me plugged in, get me to the next study” kind of deal.  It’s O.K. to wince at that statement, I just did.  But with as bad as that reason sounds, and maybe even is, I’m so thankful and humbled that it at least got me involved so that I could discover that, while that may have been my initial reason and plan, it was definitely not God’s!

When I picked up the book and began to read the foreword and then the introduction, my suspicions quickly grew that there was going to be more to this study than I had anticipated, for I might as well have underlined the entire sections!  I was really not prepared for the emotional impact that what I was reading seemed to have on me.  As I’ve shared with some fellow OBSers already, I somehow hadn’t equated all of the feelings and reactions I’d been having for the last five years of my life to stress, so wow, was chapter one ever an eye-opener for me!

I couldn’t deny the fact that Tracie’s words, “it seemed life had become a job instead of a joy,” (pg. 18), described exactly how I felt and that her questions were the very questions I’d been asking myself: “Where was the happiness I once knew?  Why did I constantly focus on what was wrong with my life rather than celebrating what was good?  Why did I allow the actions and behaviors of other people make me feel so afflicted, angry, incompetent, or hurt?  When did I become so negative and melancholy? Why had I become such a pessimist lately?  When and how had I morphed into such a frazzled woman?  Could I ever feel like myself again?” (pg. 18).  Then other words like: “missing the opportunity to enjoy my life,” and “forgotten what it felt like for my heart to feel light and free,” (pg. 19) jumped off the page at me.  And when I got to this quote: “Sometimes God allows us to get to the very end of our rope, barely hanging on by one little thread, before he reaches down and pulls us up with one mighty swoop.” (pg.19), and I couldn’t hold back the tears, I knew without a doubt that yes indeed, stress is a problem in my life and that there was definitely no mistake in me taking part in this “Stressed-Less Living” OBS – praise God! 

So, now that all that has been made clear for me, I have new and greatly improved goals for this study - to do as Tracie suggests - to start anew, humble myself before the Lord and admit I’m sick with stress.  To discover what the real root causes are for my stress – soul search (pg. 24). To “focus on making his peace the pattern of my life instead of living in a pattern of constantly falling in and out of the stress pit every time I experience life’s ups and downs.”  To have “true faith and trust in my Savior become a reality in my heart,” and “living less stressed become a reality in my life.” To have “resumed authority over my emotions,” and ultimately to stop self-inducing stress (pg. 31).  Those and more are all the things I hope to do, learn, and grow through this “Stressed-Less Living” experience, and reading Tracie’s relatable story gives me added hope that it can be done – I can, with Christ, turn my story around and get back on track living out God’s will for my life.  What a relief and a thrill!

“Don’t be afraid, for I am with you.  Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God.  I will strengthen you and help you.  I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.” ~Isaiah 41:10 NLT

“…our flesh wants to blame – blame – blame, our minds want to worry – worry – worry, and our hearts want to hurt – hurt – hurt.  But if we are holding onto that hurt, worry, and blame with both hands clenched, then we won’t have any hands left to grab on to the peace that God places within our reach.” (pg. 32)

“Despite what our society wants us to believe, and regardless of the troubles of this world, God’s normal is always serenity, and his normal can be our normal, too.” (pg. 33)

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