I'm an overachiever. I'm organized. I love lists. And I've been known to write extra things onto my already-completed to-do lists at the end of the day just so that I can check them off.
But sometimes, stress sneaks up from behind me and I begin to feel like whatever mountain I'm trying to climb is insurmountable. It can be over the most serious thing or the silliest thing. I panic in the moment, convinced that I can't actually get anything done, that the odds are all against me, that my husband and children will be unfulfilled and scarred for life by my insufficiency.
That's when I need to take a step back and take a long look at the mountain. Is it a necessary mountain? Or did I build it up on my own? Is it real, or is it really just my own pile of expectations and desires and well-meaning intentions?
Sometimes, it's a real mountain, with real requirements and real rewards. Sometimes, the rest of today really depends on me getting to whatever is at that snowy peak. As in, my children actually need me to navigate some sort of a path through the piles of laundry and around the stacks of unopened mail and over the middle-of-the-room forts and half-written grocery lists and morning appointments in order to make them peanut butter sandwiches and change their diapers and get them off to school. I really do need to see that they get down for their naps before they go crazy from mid-day exhaustion. I really do need to get the chicken out of the freezer so that it will thaw in time to make another meal for everybody to eat tonight and make sure the bills get paid in time so that I have a stove to cook it on. I really do need to make sure that I have a ride to physical therapy and someone else to care for my children while I'm there. That's a real mountain. And I really need to climb it.
But sometimes, my mountain is higher than it should be because of how badly I want everything to be tidy before naptime, or how quickly I think I need to respond to all of those text messages, or how many pairs of clean jammies I think everyone needs to have in their drawers all at once. Will my children survive until bedtime if I don't actually find fifteen creative ways to get them to consume five servings of vegetables? How much more important it is for me to sanitize the kitchen counters than to pay attention to the little girl asking me to paint a picture with her next to the dirty dishes on that counter? How many of the projects that are floating around in my head today are going to ensure that my family and the people around me know that they are loved? Sometimes, I can make it over those extra hills, and those times are truly fantastic. But sometimes, if I think that they are as necessary-to-life-and-love as everything else, I can end up feeling pretty small and pretty powerless.
It's been nearly three months since I was diagnosed with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS). It has been a glorious constant in my life. A moment-by-moment reminder of how much I need Jesus. Of how perfectly He meets my every need. I repeat this verse all the time: "And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of His glory in Christ Jesus," (Philippains 4:19).
But sometimes, stress sneaks up from behind me and I begin to feel like whatever mountain I'm trying to climb is insurmountable. It can be over the most serious thing or the silliest thing. I panic in the moment, convinced that I can't actually get anything done, that the odds are all against me, that my husband and children will be unfulfilled and scarred for life by my insufficiency.
That's when I need to take a step back and take a long look at the mountain. Is it a necessary mountain? Or did I build it up on my own? Is it real, or is it really just my own pile of expectations and desires and well-meaning intentions?
Sometimes, it's a real mountain, with real requirements and real rewards. Sometimes, the rest of today really depends on me getting to whatever is at that snowy peak. As in, my children actually need me to navigate some sort of a path through the piles of laundry and around the stacks of unopened mail and over the middle-of-the-room forts and half-written grocery lists and morning appointments in order to make them peanut butter sandwiches and change their diapers and get them off to school. I really do need to see that they get down for their naps before they go crazy from mid-day exhaustion. I really do need to get the chicken out of the freezer so that it will thaw in time to make another meal for everybody to eat tonight and make sure the bills get paid in time so that I have a stove to cook it on. I really do need to make sure that I have a ride to physical therapy and someone else to care for my children while I'm there. That's a real mountain. And I really need to climb it.
But sometimes, my mountain is higher than it should be because of how badly I want everything to be tidy before naptime, or how quickly I think I need to respond to all of those text messages, or how many pairs of clean jammies I think everyone needs to have in their drawers all at once. Will my children survive until bedtime if I don't actually find fifteen creative ways to get them to consume five servings of vegetables? How much more important it is for me to sanitize the kitchen counters than to pay attention to the little girl asking me to paint a picture with her next to the dirty dishes on that counter? How many of the projects that are floating around in my head today are going to ensure that my family and the people around me know that they are loved? Sometimes, I can make it over those extra hills, and those times are truly fantastic. But sometimes, if I think that they are as necessary-to-life-and-love as everything else, I can end up feeling pretty small and pretty powerless.
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| Someday, we'll get around to painting these walls. And we'll probably clean up the table before dinnertime. But for now, there's an artist at work. |
It's been nearly three months since I was diagnosed with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS). It has been a glorious constant in my life. A moment-by-moment reminder of how much I need Jesus. Of how perfectly He meets my every need. I repeat this verse all the time: "And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of His glory in Christ Jesus," (Philippains 4:19).
I'm learning a lot about needs. Really, I've been learning how many of the things I thought were necessary aren't really needs at all. I've been learning that I don't need to demand that something is a need for God to know what it is. I'm learning that I don't need to be able to do everything I once was able to do. It's ok that I'm not super woman. I am able to accomplish the tasks set before me today. I am able to fulfill the responsibilities that have been given to me today. The fact is: I just need eyes to see what they really are. Eyes to see what really matters today. God, please give them to me.
If it's a need, my God always makes a way for it to be filled. Somehow--even when I am overwhelmed by how much stands before me, when I am afraid of the outcome of things beyond of my control--He makes a way. And, sometimes, the way that He makes is to help me open my hands and let go of all of the extra stuff I'm stacking on top of the mountain on my own.
Romans 8:37 says that we are "more than conquerors through Him who loved us."
When God brought His people, Israel, to the land He had promised to them, the Israelites were afraid because of the enemy that stood in between them and the land. One particular man, Caleb, saw the enemy, but he trusted in a bigger God. He was convinced that he and his people were fully equipped to take on any giant, because it was God who was sending them: "...we are well able to overcome it," (Numbers 13:30). Not just able. Well able.
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| If I only see the toys on the floor, I miss out on the beauty of the kids playing with them. |
If it's a need, my God always makes a way for it to be filled. Somehow--even when I am overwhelmed by how much stands before me, when I am afraid of the outcome of things beyond of my control--He makes a way. And, sometimes, the way that He makes is to help me open my hands and let go of all of the extra stuff I'm stacking on top of the mountain on my own.
Romans 8:37 says that we are "more than conquerors through Him who loved us."
When God brought His people, Israel, to the land He had promised to them, the Israelites were afraid because of the enemy that stood in between them and the land. One particular man, Caleb, saw the enemy, but he trusted in a bigger God. He was convinced that he and his people were fully equipped to take on any giant, because it was God who was sending them: "...we are well able to overcome it," (Numbers 13:30). Not just able. Well able.
And, the very same God is bigger than the giants in my life. He's bigger than my mountains. The same God makes me able--well able--to conquer those giants and to climb those mountains. "You have made Your saving help my shield, and Your right hand sustains me; Your help has made me great," (Psalm 18:35, NIV).
When there is a mountain of needs in front of me and I feel like I'm too weak for the battle, He is stronger. Underneath the gloom of trials, in a place where I can't see or anticipate my next step, He carries me. In my lack of ability, He is my help, and He sends great help to surround me. In the thickness of the darkness, He has never left me alone. When I feel panicked and afraid because I can't see how I could possibly check everything off of the list that hangs over me, He is working every detail out for good. I don't need to insist on what good should look like. Because He knows better. He is good.
One thing I know is certain in all of my uncertainty: God is able. And because He is able, I am able.
Today is beautiful evidence of it. Because my God is able, because of His amazing power in me, because of His response to the faithful prayers of so many people, because of the amazing medical team at the URMC Pain Treatment Center, because of my incredible physical therapists at Agape Physical Therapy, today, I am climbing this mountain on my own two feet. I had my fourth nerve block this week, and I've been walking for most of each day since. With barely any pain for so much of the day. With beautiful ability. More than able.
Sure, there are still things I can't do yet--but I'm just going to write them off of my list for the day. I'm not going to add them to the mountain. My God will meet all of my needs. I'm going to walk in the strength that He gives me, and I'm going to climb as high as I can.
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| Today, walking almost looks like dancing. |
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own,” (Matthew 6:25-34).
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