I happened across this article last week from Stephanie Harper and thought it was fantastic.

I don’t know about the majority of you out there, but I do have a tendency to worry, and then I’ll let it go, but then I’ll worry a little more about it.

This article so beautifully discusses that and how to let it all just go……

Enjoy!

-Crystal

5 THINGS I CAN’T WORRY ABOUT ANYMORE

My focus should be on wellness, on getting better and continuing to learn how to cope with my situation, how to find joy and gratitude in my life, in the people who surround me. I should be focused on this. There are some things I just can’t worry about anymore.

My Love Life

Perhaps it seems a little silly to have this on the list. After all, I have a lot going on right now. Deciding whether or not to swipe right or left should perhaps be the last thing on my mind.  I crave connection and contact in the midst of all of this.

I worry that I am going to lose out on my chance to be in love in that singular, most intimate way. As I watch my friends get married and have babies, I worry that this is just not something in the cards for me. And, I want it. I want it all. I want to love and share my life with someone.

But I also need to get well and be comfortable with my situation, who I am and what I am going through. I need this for me and I need this to be a partner to someone else. So, instead of worrying about a future of cats and spinsterhood, I will focus on being my best self and loving who and what I already have to the best of my ability. And, I will trust that the rest of it will come.

Keeping Up With My Peers

It’s difficult not to feel a little insecure about my life right now. I am not financially stable. I do not have the independence I long for, that so many people my age are finally enjoying now that the economy has begun to shift and jobs are becoming available. While I am thankful for Medicaid, the system can be difficult to navigate and a little humiliating at times. It’s hard not to look at others’ success and worry about my own missteps.

But I cannot measure my own success against that of my peers. I have to honor the setbacks. I can’t worry about how all of this stacks up against everyone else. I have to measure my triumphs in a way that does not minimize them, but instead celebrates what I have been able to do. Just me. Life is not a competition and I am not running a race. I need to focus on being who I want to be and not let the rest of it matter so very much.

What Other People Think of My Situation

I wish it didn’t matter how other people view me and my situation, but it does. I want people to understand and respect what I am going through. There are a few reasons for this. First, I worry that people don’t believe me, or at least don’t really appreciate how difficult things are for me on a daily basis.

I worry that people think I am a life failure, that I’ve just gotten lazy or I don’t try hard enough to overcome the obstacles my chronic pain sets forth. I guess I just worry that people are disappointed in me. Sometimes, I worry it’s the people I love the most who might feel this way. This fear can be incapacitating.

On the other hand, I want people to understand what I am going through because I crave the validation. I want people to pat me on the back and say “you are strong” or “you are brave” because sometimes I don’t feel like either of those things and it’s nice to hear someone say it. Sometimes I worry if they don’t say it, they don’t believe it, and it’s not true.

But I can’t worry about any of that. It’s not anybody else’s responsibility to validate my situation. I know what I experience, I live it every day, and as much as I want others to understand it, they aren’t me. I also can’t forget that it’s a lot to ask, for people to live in my struggle with me. As much as it takes out of me, it takes out of them too. I can’t worry that people don’t know exactly what I’m going through, when they show me every day that they love me and support me. That is enough.

The Life I Thought I Would Have

I just turned 27. I thought I would have a book published, or at least be a bit farther along in the publishing process by now. I thought I’d have gotten a substantial start on my next big project. I thought my career would be well under way.

This is unfair. I am working hard, and I have accomplished things. Yes, sometimes I have to take naps, and sometimes I go for days at a time where I can’t work, where I can’t even look at a computer screen, but that doesn’t mean that I have given up. I push forward every day. I find ways to make it all work. I have to stop worrying about where I thought I’d be, and see the progress in where I’ve gotten.

The Future

It’s impossible not to worry about the future. And, there is some value in thinking about where you’d like to be in a few years. It’s how we set goals, challenge ourselves, make changes for the better. The danger comes in obsessing about a future where you just can’t imagine liking what you see.

And I can’t worry about what that means. I can’t worry about what that means for the rest of my life. I have to focus on the here and now, what I’m doing today, and every day, to not just get by but to fill my life with joy and gratitude.

And more than anything, I have to let that be enough for me.

The actual article can be found here.

Recently a good friend shared this beautiful poem about parenting.

It was just TOO GOOD to not share with the world. It is one of my new favorites!

“When you thought I wasn’t looking”

When you thought I wasn’t looking,
I saw you hang my first painting on the refrigerator,
and I wanted to paint another one.

When you thought I wasn’t looking,
I saw you feed a stray cat,
and I thought it was good to be kind to animals.

When you thought I wasn’t looking,
I saw you make my favorite cake for me,
and I knew that little things are special things.

When you thought I wasn’t looking,
I heard you say a prayer,
and I believed that there was a God to talk to.

When you thought I wasn’t looking,
I felt you kiss me goodnight,
and I felt loved.

When you thought I wasn’t looking,
I saw tears come from your eyes,
and I learned that sometimes things hurt,
but it’s alright to cry.

When you thought I wasn’t looking,
I saw that you cared,
and I wanted to be everything that I could be.

When you thought I wasn’t looking,
I looked….
and I wanted to say thanks for all the things
I saw when you thought I wasn’t looking.

Author: Mary Rita Schilke Korazan

**The Best Yes**

I recently read this book and it completely changed my life.

There was so much great advice from Lysa. I have commonly felt rushed in my life and pulled in too many directions. This book talked about how there is many things we can commit to, but that we need to figure out what is the BEST YES to give our time and energy to.

“We must not confuse the command to love with the disease to please. “

A woman who lives with the stress of an overwhelmed schedule will often ache with the sadness of an underwhelmed soul.

I blindly live at the mercy of the requests of others that come my way each day. Every assignment feels like my assignment.

You need me?  You got me.

Because I’m too scared or too cowardly or too busy or too something to just be honest and say, “I can’t this time”.

We must not confuse the command to love with the desire to please.

In God’s plan, you’ve got a part to play.

If you know it and believe it, you’ll live it.

You’ll live your life making decisions with the Best Yes as your best filter.

You’ll be a grand display of God’s Word lived out.

Your undistracted love will make your faith ring true.

Your wisdom will help you make decisions that will still be good tomorrow.

And you’ll be alive and present for all of it.

When all of life feels like an urgent rush from one demand to another, we become forgetful.

We forget simple things like where we put our car keys or that one crucial ingredient for dinner when we run into the grocery store. But even more disturbing, we forget God. We say with our mouths that we are trusting and relying on God, but are we really?

A quick check to see if this is true is our ability to notice what God wants us to notice and our willingness to participate when God invites us to participate.

Other people’s requests dictate the decisions we make. We become slaves to other’s demands when we let our time become dictated by requests. We will live reactive lives instead of proactive. And reactive lives get very exhausting, very quickly. We get requests. We fill up our schedules all the way to the limit. We leave very little white space. We live lives that exhaust us.

A woman who lives with the stress of an overwhelmed schedule will often ache with the sadness of an underwhelmed soul. An underwhelmed soul is one who knows there is more God made her to do. She longs to do that thing she wakes up in the middle of the night thinking about.

The decisions we make dictate the schedules we keep.

The schedules we keep determine the lives we live.

The lives we live determine how we spend our souls.

So, this isn’t just about finding time.

This is about honoring God with the time we have.

Never is a woman so fulfilled as when she chooses to underwhelm her schedule so she can let God overwhelm her soul.

Never despise the mundane. Embrace it. Unwrap it like a gift. And be one of the rare few who looks deeper than just the surface. See something more in the everyday. It’s there. We can learn right here, right now, in the midst of all that’s daily how to become wise.

I’ve learned the best “no” answers are graciously honest. A simple no I will sometimes use is, “While my heart wants to say yes, the reality of my time makes this a no.”  Because I am someone who carries a great desire to make others happy, my heart is usually always jumping up and down demanding, “Say yes! Say yes!” But my brain has learned it must boss my heart around a bit once it checks my schedule, considers my capacity, and understands what is and is not my responsibility.

The difficult moment of saying no is worth it if it helps you avoid being resentful later.

Saying yes all the time won’t make me Wonder Woman. It will make me a worn-out woman.

We dread saying yes but feel powerless to say no. Why?  Because of the elephant called people pleasing?

We are afraid of people not liking us. Not admiring us. Not being pleased with us. So we spend the best of who we are doing a million things we know we aren’t supposed to be doing.

It is impossible to please everyone. And wearing yourself out trying will often make you the unhappiest person in the room.

We fear disappointing people.

When you have a pattern of saying yes when you know you should say no, it’s time to reevaluate some things.

Step back and think about what’s really going on. You said no because saying yes would invite crazy into your life. And you’ve been telling yourself over and over, NO MORE CRAZY. If they push back when you say no, that’s disrespectful on their part. And if you play along, it’s dysfunctional on your part.

You won’t ever be able to keep up with unrealistic. Unrealistic demands lead to undercurrents of failure. So don’t allow the unrealistic demands of others to march freely into your life.

Those who constantly try to impress others will quickly depress themselves. That’s not love.

We must not confuse the disease to please with the command to love.

For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose love, their hearts are fully committed to him.

The sooner we can make peace with the facts we can’t please everyone and some people won’t be pleased no matter what, the sooner we can be freed from that elephant sitting on our air hose. We’ll have the oxygen and the energy to simply and generously love. After all, love, real love, is a very Best Yes.

Saying no isn’t an unnecessary rejection. It’s actually a necessary protection of our Best Yes answers.

Whenever you say yes to something, there is less of you for something else. Make sure your yes is worth the less.

Together is a really good word. Together is what we need when we hit tough patches in life. Making decisions when life is making you cry shouldn’t be done alone.

Friend, you are strong. You are persevering, tough, able to bend without breaking, willing to be humbled to the point of humiliation, not blinded, a hunter for wisdom, a praying-through-it woman, a courageous gal, one who wants to learn the deep dependence of following hard after God himself. From that cracked-open-heart place, a God-breathed strength will rise. Rise. Rise. And help you spit in Satan’s face as you declare, “You picked the wrong woman to mess with this time!”