It could be stated....that due to my naturally dramatic nature......that I can get overwhelmed easily. I am, after all, the little girl who would wrap her ankle up with an Ace bandage every time it seemed to hurt. Often to me, circumstances in life can appear larger than they actually are, almost as if I were viewing things through a perpetual rearview mirror.
Amen. I take things too seriously sometimes.
And our blissful Fjerky family life has been picking up steam lately as our calendar just keeps getting more and more packed. It often seems as though the older we get, the more responsibilities are thrust upon us; the crazier life gets, the lengthier the list of things to worry about grows. Sometimes, it just seems so easy to get exasperatingly overwhelmed.
How does one avoid being overwhelmed? By shutting others and opportunities out? By blindly saying 'No' all the time? By shutting down emotionally? That seems.....hopeless. And selfish. And downright dreadful.
I honestly don't know.....but the more that I think, pray and study on it......the more I think that I realize that the feeling of "overwhelmed" is often about my own attitude and perception of situations.
One more shindig gathering pops up that we should attend? Stop viewing it as a blot on a blissfully free weekend and embrace it as a chance to pour forth love and good society.
One more obligation that is asked of us? Stop viewing it as an annoyance to be gotten through trudgingly and embrace it as a chance to share our God-given value.
"The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or do or say. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. It will make or break a company.....a church......a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past......we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you......we are in charge of our attitudes" - Charles Swindoll
Attitude - the way that we view things directly affects the way that we respond to them.
It is safe to say that before I became a mother, I did not work very hard to cultivate an attitude of calm in my life. I freaked out easily, stressed out about small things, and in general let my mind run amuck. I got easily overwhelmed. Since I had Finn, however, I have been working actively at being a calm person because that is the environment that I want him to grow up in.
Being calm is not something that comes easily to me, but I am realizing more and more that I am able to choose to remain calm.
The way I see it, there is a continuum between being a person of calmness/peace and being a person of freakouts/spazz-attacks. Picture it like this:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxMExxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
calm crazy
Being that I am a person and people tend to be in a constant state of motion and change, I figure that I am always moving in one direction or another on the continuum of calm.
For instance, yesterday Finn pooped in the bathtub. Not only that, but as I was in the process of cleaning him and it up, he kept right on pooping. The situation at the time seemed overwhelming to me. So standing there, with my son crying and the poop flying, I had a choice. I could either give in to the feeling of being overwhelmed and begin crying along with him......or, I could take a deep breath and just deal - knowing that the moment won't last forever. If I choose the latter, I have moved closer to the calm side of the continuum and it makes it easier to make that same decision next time. If I choose the former, well, I have taken another step towards being a person I really don't want to be. Life is a series of choices that work to develop who we are.
This also reminds me of a conversation I had recently with an amazing friend; she was telling me how tired she was of life throwing one annoying thing after another at her. More than that, she said she was tired of getting stressed out about each annoying thing - so she had decided that she was not going to keep going off what she was feeling. Rather, she was going to take things more in stride, she was going to relax and not take things so seriously.
I do not mean to make this all sound, however, as though it were all a matter of the will. It is impossible to will these types of urges away and expect them to remain on the sideline. Though it is possible to manage our attitudes and learn the art of chilling out, the work is completed only by God. Eventually, should we persist in our strength, the task will prove to be too much. Rather, its a matter of drawing on God's strength and ability to change me as I look to Him and allow Him room to move in my life.
I have been reflecting recently on story in Mark 4:35-41:
"'Late that day he said to them, 'Let's go across to the other side.' They took him in the boat as he was. Other boats came along. A huge storm came up. Waves poured into the boat, threatening to sink it. And Jesus was in the stern, head on a pillow, sleeping! They roused him, saying, 'Teacher, is it nothing to you that we're going down?' Awake now, he told the wind to pipe down and said to the sea, 'Quiet! Settle down!' The wind ran out of breath; the sea became smooth as glass. Jesus reprimanded the disciples: 'Why are you such cowards?? Don't you have any faith at all?' They were in absolute awe, staggered, 'Who is this, anyway?' they asked. 'Wind and sea at his beck and call!'"
Sometimes, my life feels as though its boat is about to capsize amidst the waves beating against my boat. I plead with God in my prayers, "Don't you see these waves overwhelming me?!"
Time after time, He says, "Do not fear. Peace, be still."
My problem is that I am focusing more on the waves than I am on He who is in the boat with me. I am looking at the storm and forgetting that He who created all things is right by my side.
The main issue is that I can't speak peace to the storm raging in my circumstances if there is not peace inside of me.
Knowing God is with me is sometimes the only peace I have in the craziness of life.
But that's enough.
I do not mean to make this all sound, however, as though it were all a matter of the will. It is impossible to will these types of urges away and expect them to remain on the sideline. Though it is possible to manage our attitudes and learn the art of chilling out, the work is completed only by God. Eventually, should we persist in our strength, the task will prove to be too much. Rather, its a matter of drawing on God's strength and ability to change me as I look to Him and allow Him room to move in my life.
I have been reflecting recently on story in Mark 4:35-41:
"'Late that day he said to them, 'Let's go across to the other side.' They took him in the boat as he was. Other boats came along. A huge storm came up. Waves poured into the boat, threatening to sink it. And Jesus was in the stern, head on a pillow, sleeping! They roused him, saying, 'Teacher, is it nothing to you that we're going down?' Awake now, he told the wind to pipe down and said to the sea, 'Quiet! Settle down!' The wind ran out of breath; the sea became smooth as glass. Jesus reprimanded the disciples: 'Why are you such cowards?? Don't you have any faith at all?' They were in absolute awe, staggered, 'Who is this, anyway?' they asked. 'Wind and sea at his beck and call!'"
Sometimes, my life feels as though its boat is about to capsize amidst the waves beating against my boat. I plead with God in my prayers, "Don't you see these waves overwhelming me?!"
Time after time, He says, "Do not fear. Peace, be still."
My problem is that I am focusing more on the waves than I am on He who is in the boat with me. I am looking at the storm and forgetting that He who created all things is right by my side.
The main issue is that I can't speak peace to the storm raging in my circumstances if there is not peace inside of me.
Knowing God is with me is sometimes the only peace I have in the craziness of life.
But that's enough.
I have been re-watching Felicity lately on Netflix and as I was half paying attention the other day while I was doing homework I heard,
"Before you let yourself get caught up in the drama of the moment, just know that you're going to be fine."
For some reason it struck a chord with me because that is often what I do - get caught up in the drama of a moment.
When all I really need to do is connect to the peace inside of me that Jesus has promised (John 14:27) and say, "Peace. Be still."
I do not need to be overwhelmed or underwhelmed. I can dwell in the 'whelmed', calm place of peace.
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