I don't know about you, but I have this tendency to want to embrace every moment, every moment that I'm alive, every moment with my kids, every moment with my spouse. It's like I want to suffocate every last bit of breath out of everything, and I have had to rein in, so that I could have mental health on it.
And this is something that has been kind of a theme throughout my life, where this concept of time, this sense that there's only so much time and I need to make the most of it. It's like I'm one of those people that if you hear the news and something bad happened to somebody and they, say, oh, we never would have guessed. I'm like, okay, I've already thought of that, but does that prevent it?
I probably have already said, okay, let's prepare so that that doesn't happen. Let's be aware so that doesn't happen. It's like this hyper vigilance, right? And you can't live like that. There's no cause-and-effect correlation. Sometimes we can watch and avoid things that we wouldn't have avoided otherwise. It just makes sense that if we put gas in our car, we're going to avoid running out of gas on the road, right? But with time and feeling like I can do something more to squeeze more out of the time or that I can prepare more so that nothing bad happens or that there's this sense of control that I need to do more to make sure fill in the blank. Those are the areas that I've struggled in off and on through my life. And I wonder if you felt the same in any way.
Sometimes that's even gone into an existential kind of crisis. It's like, how long is eternity? Oh my goodness, what if today's the day I die? What if everything's okay and I live to be like 100? Do I really want to live to be 100? Well, maybe I do. Maybe not more than that, but maybe I could. I don't know. It depends.
Wait, how do I think about this? When I see things popping up on the Internet where you only have this much time with your kids. You've already spent 90% of your time with your kids by the time they're 18. Or the thing about how many weekends you have with your kids before they're 18, and mine are all now 18 and above. So it's like, wait a minute, that wasn't a punishment. It wasn't a fear-based punishment that I had to worry about, but these things where there will be a last time when you held your child, that you said I love you, and that you tucked them into bed. It's like, please stop doing that to me.
Avoid the Existential Time Crisis
Then I realized, I don't have to have these existential, time oriented, fear-based concerns or issues. If any of that sounds like stuff you have struggled through, I want to help you with it. Here are the things that we can tell ourselves to calm that hyper vigilant overactive imagination. Oh my goodness, time is getting away from us. Oh my goodness. What does time mean? All of those kinds of things, any of that is able to be contained and dealt with a few simple tools.
God Is Outside of Time
God is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. He is outside of time. He is time. In Him, we live and move and have our being. We don't have to worry about the concept of time. There is time for everything that He has for us to do in life and anything that doesn't get done by the end of it must not have been something that was in His design for us to do if we are seeking to live for Him, right?
Seek God
It'd be different if we have regrets because we have intentionally sinned or gone against seeking His path for our lives and kind of went off track and wasted time. If you are truly seeking God and living your life to serve Him and do what you believe He's leading you in, then I believe that every single thing that He has for you to do, every single person that He has for you to love, and every single moment that He has for you to be with your kids, whether they're babies, toddlers, school age kids, young adults, or even when they get to be middle-aged or whatever, every amount of time, every amount of effort, every amount of the thing that is yours, that is in your hand to do something with and steward is there because God has blessed you with these good things and we don't need to fear time. Running out or bad things happening because God is with us. Always, always God is with us. We don't have to try to predict the future or regret the past or suffocate the moments out of anything. We need to breathe in and out, be presently where we are and let the Lord direct our steps and guide our paths every day of our lives.
God Provides
He gave us the moments. He gave us the people. He gives us every good and perfect gift and every blessing. He is our protector. He is our strength. He is our shield. He is the One who holds our days. He loves us and he knows us. He has good for us and good for those we love. He can be trusted. He is a good, good Father. He doesn't give as the world gives. We can rest and have peace knowing that our Heavenly Father's got us. He is the Alpha and the Omega.
God Is Constant
And He doesn't change. We're the ones with the warped concept of time, with the warped concept of how much is on our shoulders and how much we have to do in reality. He's given us life. He's given us those we love. He's our protector and He is ever present with us. And if we rest in our present moments, right where our body is, right where we are in the truth that God's got us then we don't need to understand it all and we don't need to do more or do less. We just need to live, love, and step into the next thing that He has gifted us. It's all going to be fine.
You don't have to worry about time running out. You don't have to worry about not having enough time, having too much time, what will happen, what won't happen, what you have to do, what you don't have to do, what you'll get done, and what you won't get done. Just breathe in and release all of that tension and stress and focus your eyes on Jesus. The things of Earth will grow strangely dim in light of His glory and grace. His face is what we seek and He's here with us. Every time you see a good gift, a good and perfect gift like a smile in your child's or grandchild's eyes or see and hear a pretty bird tweeting a beautiful melody. And then there's a bird there right on cue. If you really think about God being present with you in every good thing and the fact that you are breathing in and out and are alive, that's a good thing.
We can trust in Him. So we can say, thank you body for alarming us, thank you mind for trying to help us and protect us and lead us, to prevent shoes from dropping, prevent regrets, and to make the most of things, but God's got us and we're okay. We can rest and just be present and enjoy living in the blessings of the Lord and His protection.
Go take on the day.
As a Christian counselor and coach for women, I have the advantage of hearing what's going on behind the scenes in many women's lives and see how women get stuck in the lies they believe which hold them back. In my experience, I have found there are four reasons that cause many women to get stuck and remain in a vicious cycle, causing them to not gain traction towards their goals in life. Most of the time, if these can be mastered, women can overcome what is going on and get unstuck!
The Glass Ceiling
First, I like to envision a glass ceiling as a metaphor for these 4 Reasons for Getting Stuck, not in terms of the business world, but in terms of our own lives. I think we often have our own glass ceilings where these four things get in the way. We don't even realize it because it's metaphorical "glass," and we can see through it. When these four things are addressed, we can shatter that glass ceiling. With God's help, we can keep going, and there's really no limit to how much good we can have in our lives! We have to intentionally cultivate a belief that is not limiting us.
Four Reasons for Getting Stuck
Are You Going Too BIG?
Many of us go too BIG and believe if we can't do it all, then we're not doing anything. We may believe if we're not fully able to do something, we can't. In these cases where you can't do it all at once, choose one thing that will have the biggest impact and make the biggest difference and repeat it until it's solid or a good habit. Incorporate it as part of your life where you can do it without thinking. If you don't just focus on that one thing, you won't make traction on anything because of the burden of carrying all the areas you want to change. You only have so much time and energy and the burden of trying to do something in all areas at once can feel like failure. So don't go too broad and don't go all in or nothing, but instead pick one thing to focus on improving, do it well until you feel solid in it, and then pick the next one thing. Chunking it is the best way to do it!
Do You Struggle with Trauma?
It has been said that from the time someone really starts to be aware of their mental health issues to getting help can be 12 years! That's over a decade of suffering that could be helped a lot sooner. We tend to make all kinds of excuses for not addressing the trauma. We may minimize it as not a big deal or think that we'll get over it. We may think if others can do it, so can I or it's not as bad as others so I can tough it out. This type of rationalization when you are hurting and stuck due to trauma doesn't help you heal from it. Trauma needs trauma healing with help from somebody who can address what has impacted your nervous system where the information is stored which is keeping you stuck. So, if you keep hitting against the same things over and over, you're going to notice patterns. If those patterns are rooted in fear or trauma, I encourage you to reach out to a professional who can help you!
What Is Your Mindset? What Do You Believe?
It's often difficult to reach goals because of our mindset. Our mindset is what we believe we can do and what we don't believe we can do. We often think we have a realistic mindset because that's the lens through which we view the world and our brain is what we use to determine it. This is why we have to take our mindsets back to scripture on a daily basis because the renewing of our mind gives us more accurate lenses. For example, I'm currently struggling with some eyesight issues for which I need to go to the eye doctor. I am noticing how much my vision is clouded in one of my eyes making things harder to focus on, and I need it to be healed. I need to remove that cloudiness, distortion, or diffusion of light because I can't see with accuracy. Once I get that corrected, I will see clearly. With my eyes, I know I can see much more clearly out of one eye than the other. When I apply this example to our mindset, we don't even know what we have been tolerating for so long if we've been accepting it as truth. We decide this truth in our minds and if this is not lined up with scripture, we might not be seeing things as clearly as we think we are. Through scripture, we can have a mindset that challenges limited beliefs or that glass ceiling and speaks the truth where we can do all things through Christ. As women, we don't want to play small; we want to play for God who created everything from the stars in the sky to every hair on your head.
Where's Your Confidence?
A lack of confidence is something that may also leave you feeling stuck. You can do all things through Christ who gives you strength...this is the confidence in which you can have a better life and not live in misery. This confidence is one in which you can do and achieve hard things. So, if you don't have the confidence in yourself right now, have the confidence in God because He says He will never leave you or forsake you. He is where we can put our confidence. God didn't make junk; He made you fearfully and wonderfully with many gifts, skills, and talents. He can do amazing things through your life, but you need to let Him by healing that which hasn't been healed through professional treatment if you need it and not trying to do everything at once by choosing one thing at a time. Don't tell yourself that it's not good and instead, keep working at it until you get good and then go to the next step. Have confidence in what He can do and check your mindset by returning it back to the truths of scripture and the immensity of who God is and all He created for you.
If you do these four things in your life, they are going to make a huge difference. You'll be amazed at what you and God achieve together because He can already do it and you can too, but you just need to know it!
