When Things Just Don't Go Right

This morning as I was sitting at my computer counting ticket sales for our daughter's upcoming theater performance, my husband called from the back door, "There's a dead kitten back here."

With a heaviness I put on my boots and went out to view the tiny little body, somehow escaped from her chicken wire safe space, and loved on just too much by our over-eager Great Pyrenees puppy. As I fetched the shovel I shook my head thinking of how much death is part of our life on the farm.

What I had anticipated as a relaxing first week of school vacation has proven to be an exhausting week of ill-health and crisis. Nothing has gone the way I expected, from my body's functioning to our family's schedule to blogging here.

We all have weeks like this, sometimes even years. Maybe it's just a string of things that don't go right, but sometimes it includes great loss and tragedy. And in the middle of it all there is much temptation to despair.

There is a peace when things are in order, not only in the physical realm, but also in our minds. And when that order gets rifled through, it is sometimes hard to hold on to serenity.

I confess I have had my moments this week. I would love to tell you that I have had perfect self-control and was able to turn peacefully to the Lord for all my needs, but the fact is there have been a few tear-filled sessions.

I want to share with you a few things I have done this week that have helped. To be honest, I write this mostly so I can look back at it when another week like this hits me. It is so hard sometimes to remember what to do when you are in the middle of a crisis.


Sleep

I have changed the sleep rules this week. Half way through the week I stopped setting my alarm. Blessedly, it took only a few days of oversleeping for my internal clock to be reset. This morning, without an alarm, I woke right up at 4:00am.

I also have been napping whenever I feel tired and am at home. Most of the time I just lie down on the couch so the children have easy access to me (and yes that means the naps have been interrupted, but it is still extra sleep). A few times I actually laid down in bed.


Water

I have discovered that I am chronically dehydrated. This has led to several health problems that are quite annoying. When I am home I am setting a timer for every hour, and drinking an 8oz glass of water standing right there in the kitchen. When I go out I am taking a bottle of iced water with lemon to make drinking more appealing.


Lots of Salad

This may sound silly, but I have been craving and consuming huge amounts of salad. I believe it's my body's way of helping me restore internal balance. I never get a heavy feeling after eating a salad like I do after many other meals. To keep my protein levels even, I add bits of meat or cheese or sunflower seeds.


Prayer

Yes, of course I have been praying, but sometimes when you are so low you find it hard to know how to pray for yourself. In these moments I reach out to others and ask for prayer. There is tremendous grace in God's allowing others to intercede for us. Perhaps it is part of His design for us as a body. I rarely struggle to pray for others even when I am struggling to pray for myself.


Be Obsessive About Bible Time

With so much on my mind this week, there have been several mornings when I have allowed myself to become distracted before getting in the Word, and my time of study has suffered. My peace has suffered too. There is nothing like the living and active Word of God to put everything into perspective. I want to start my day with right thinking, not distracted by my worries and to-do list, or by the current bad news online. Penny at Living Above Ministries recently wrote a great post about this... What Do You Open First?.


Let Go

This one is the hardest for me. This week I have had to let go of a number of things I had planned to do, including blogging. It is very hard for me to do this without feeling guilty and like a failure. Yet I would be the first to encourage this very thing in anyone else. Sometimes the person I have the hardest time extending grace to is myself.


How about you? When you run into one of those weeks, what do you do to make it through and remain peaceful?

Compassion, Not a Report Card

I didn’t think I was a legalist.

I just thought I was disorganized, selfish and overcommitted.   I was trying really hard to be a good girl, to be a good Christian, and if I could just get organized... read my bible harder... pray more...

Until the day, not too long ago, when I was sharing some struggles with my prayer partner and she reflected, “What strikes me is your observation that you feel like you have a long report card and you are failing in every area.  That is not how God looks at you...

I'm guest posting at SomeGirl's Website today.  To read the rest of Compassion, Not a Report Card, please click on over and join us there!

Just Do It

Ever have a day when you get out of bed and wonder how you're going to muddle through to the end?

The kind of day when you step on a lego, then stub your toe on a pile of books, and all you can think is "Why doesn't anyone ever clean this place?"  You stumble to the kitchen for your tea and have to clear a path on the counter to the teapot. Your curly headed toddler meanders out and as you snuggle him good morning, you realize he smells like last night's hamburger and the back of his head appears to be sprouting dreadlocks.

You probably don't have days like this, because you are probably much more organized than I am.  You probably also have very well trained children who always pick up after themselves without being told.  Or perhaps they need a reminder, but you are so consistent with your routines that you remembered to sing out sweetly at 5:00pm last night, "Time to tidy the house, children!"  And your little cherubs cheerfully rushed to do your bidding.

<sigh>

I find it frustrating that this issue seem to be cyclical for me.  I do very well at keeping to routines and on top of things for a while, then either there is a slow erosion of order (both in time and space), or something dramatic interrupts our lives and we just can't seem to get back on track.

Being away derailed us this time.  Not only were we away for two and half weeks, but it was a very physically and emotionally exhausting trip.  When we got home, I managed to hold myself together just long enough to get The Princess to her theater class, then I came home and hit the proverbial wall.  I literally felt like I had been in a sustained wrestling match.  My muscles ached.  My bones ached.  I spent two days taking Advil and sleeping a lot.

Today I felt mostly back to normal, but when I looked around my house this morning I just wanted to crawl back in bed.  The center of the house, the public rooms, were fairly tidy, although they needed a good dusting.  But all those satellite rooms... the bedrooms, the school room, the bathrooms, the office... each one was its own explosion.  While I rested these past few days, the children continued on with school work, but they also continued on with playing, especially Little Warrior.  Little Warrior specializes in battlefields, and he did a fine job of recreating them throughout the house.

I sometimes have bouts with nighttime anxiety, and when I am worried, I often find myself awake at 2:00 or 3:00, lying in bed trying to get back to sleep, while endless loops of that-which-is-undone-but-shouldn't-be and what-if-this-terrible-thing-happens cycle through my brain.  It is in this dark hour that my worst fears ooze around my prostrate body, and I feel that I am slowly sinking into a suffocating swamp of my failures.

I have learned that the only way to take this wretchedness in hand is to stand up.  Feet on floor, I take my favorite pillow, and walk to my spot on the couch.  With a glass of water or soothing herbal tea, and my bible or an inspirational book, I open my mind to receive God's advice.

This morning at 3:06, when I snuggled down into the couch, the reminder I got was Just Do It.

Someone has to do it, and that someone is me.

I can fuss about a messy house, but nothing will change until I DO something about it.  I can worry about what "should" be but isn't, but until I DO something, it all remains in the shadowy realm of hypothesis.

I wish I could tell you that I'm a Super Hero and woke up chipper and energetic later that morning.  That I Just Did It all day.  I've already mentioned the legos.

But I did surface from the sea of my own exhaustion enough times to take a deep breath and DO something.  We won't wake up to a perfect house tomorrow, but it also won't be the same disaster. 

Just Do It.

Anger Management 101

It seems there are obstacles to joy everywhere I turn. Anger is a big one. While I am by nature somewhat slow to anger, by the time I do get angry, those slowly building clouds have become a hurricane.

The bible doesn’t say, “Thou shalt not get angry,” but it does say “Be angry, and yet do not sin” (Ephesians 4:26). Over the years God has led me to several strategies for managing my emotional pot when it’s at a rolling boil.

One of the most effective strategies I’ve found is to go for a walk in our fields, removing myself from the situation before I sin. I am sure it would be amusing to see me practically running, as I barrel across a field, sputtering and crying out to God, while wide-eyed cows stare and birds fly up in a panic!

I think those walks help in several ways. No doubt going to God with my outburst is the most helpful - it gets it out (stuffing always backfires!), and He fills that spot in my heart with peace. He often also gives me wisdom into the situation - sometimes wisdom on how to handle it, sometimes on how my own sin brought it on in the first place.

I also think, being a physical creature, that the exercise itself helps (and I can assure you that when I storm, I storm FAST). My tightly clenched jaw, fists, stomach, SELF!, are slowly released by the effort of speeding over hills and panting out my grievances to God.

When all my built up energy is released through prayer and exercise, I am able to return to my family and be rational.

You know, I expect that God’s desire for me is to never get angry at all. To be so still on the inside, so constantly in His presence, that I am able to handle all circumstances in peace. “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts” (Col 3:15) But he is a gracious God, and meets me where I am.

Under Duress

I am a perfectionist. This is a serious hindrance to joy in my life.

I am writing now because my husband made me. I was moaning about how hard it is to write tonight, and when he asked for the link to this new blog I sighed and said mournfully, "Being Joyful".

He laughed and told me I had to post this. Under duress I am here to confess...

My name is Patti and I am a perfectionist.