"You Seem Stressed"


We’ve all got it...our own “thing” that holds us back from being who we really desire to be. From who God desires us to be. From living covered in joy. For some it’s impatience, some it’s the desire for perfection, maybe it’s being overly competitive, jealous, insecure, fearful, could be a whole litany of different little things. But I don’t even need to skip a beat when I confess that one of my “things” is letting worry, unnecessary worry, lead to ugly stress. So much so, that for Lent this year, I “gave up” worrying! It worked like a charm right over night...NOT! If only it worked that way. But, any time I found myself worrying, especially about something show-stoppingly insignificant, I stopped in my tracks and started praying instead. “I’m handing this over to you, Lord.” Well, Lent has been over for quite some time now, and I am STILL considering this mission a work-in-progress. Little by little I’m learning, though. Baby steps! :)

I’ve had a handful of “AHA moments” throughout my faith journey. Those memorable moments where God turns up the dimmer switch in the room to full power and you can see everything so much more clearly in that moment. You know, that moment when you’re sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that some changes need to be made and you can’t wait to get started. One of my first “AHA moments” that I can remember vividly of course has to do with being stressed. It’s my “thing” after all… I was in my car on the way back to the glamour of college after a weekend of being back at home. I remember just feeling stressed, anxious, and lost...nothing particularly bad was going on, and I can’t even remember what I was so stressed about, but something was missing for me and I couldn’t quite figure out what. You know it’s bad when you can’t, for the life of you, even remember what was causing the stress... But, the tears were streaming, the stress of getting back to “it all” was rearing its ugly head, and then it happened. God’s little love note to me was delivered priority-mail through the radio.

The Motions by Matthew West

If you haven’t heard it, please take a quick reading break to go listen to it and let every word slowly, tenderly soak in.

And It was just like that, in an instant, that it clicked. It was time to stop just “going through the motions” and start living life the way God intended me to be living it. Not stressed about the small stuff or worried about things yet to come, but joyfully...FULLY in Him! “I don’t want to go through the motions. I don’t want to go one more day, without Your all-consuming passion inside of me.”

“I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.” John 15:11

This simple but powerful message worked! He worked. Things started changing for me, my light was shining a little brighter and I searched more intentionally for Jesus in the midst of it all. I spent less time stressed and worried, and more time in the Word. More time building my relationship with our good, good Father. There are so many more beautiful pages of this story to share another time, but moral of the story, I was living joyfully!

“When your joy in Me meets My joy in you, there are fireworks of heavenly ecstasy.” Sarah Young in Jesus Calling

Before I knew it, I was a first-year teacher, eager and ready to mold young minds. I’d venture to say that I’ve been a teacher ever since I was in second grade myself...it is all I’ve ever wanted to do and be. A true calling. All you teachers out there know exactly what I mean! It was a challenging year, but a joyful one. I can sincerely remember multiple occasions where people that I passed in the hallways stopped me and said, “I love how you are always smiling! You seem so happy.” God was using me and his joy was shining through me. It was wonderful!

Time flies...we’ve all experienced it. It seems as though someone pressed the fast forward button on life and before I knew it, I was in my fifth year of teaching. Life was and is beautiful right now in the season I am in! God has blessed me with more than I can even fathom, including an amazing husband and so many new, open doors that I could have never seen coming years ago. My life truly is just covered in joy. But in the midst of it all, somehow that little “love note” that God had sent me years ago to live in the moment, intentionally, had gotten shuffled under a stack of “to-dos” and unnecessary worries strewn all over my mind.

And then one day, instead of hearing in the hallways, “Wow, I love how you’re always smiling,” I felt a compassionate little hug mixed with a sweet small voice saying, “Mrs. Fleming, you seem stressed.” Woah. Ouch. Cue the tears. My students, the ones that I am supposed to be shining bright for, sharing God’s joy with, can actually see my stress instead? When did I start just “going through the motions” again? “AHA!” Time to slow down, refocus on God, and trustingly ask Him where in my life I need to make some changes…

One of those changes...slow down, look for the overflowing joy surrounding us, and blog about it! :)

I’m thankful that God takes the time to slow me down and remind me when I’m getting off course with his sweet and simple “AHA moments,” but my goal is to try to do a better job of not misplacing these little reminders in the swirling chaos of life. To put them on a sticky note and slap it on the bathroom mirror if I have to! I am going to keep eagerly looking for the love notes that God is sending my way, but hopefully I won’t make Him send the same ones over and over again too many times. Here is to not just waiting for the “AHA moments.” Let’s live each day intentionally instead of just “going through the motions.”

As I sat down to read through an old prayer journal of mine recently, I stumbled upon an, oh so fitting, reminder. Several years ago I scribbled down:
Radiate His Love!
Radiate His Joy!
Radiate His Light!
So that anyone who comes near is engulfed by the light, love and joy that you’re radiating. Let them say, “WOW! What was that?”

COVERED IN JOY. Not covered in stress and to-dos. Give it to God. He wants to take our weights from our shoulders so we can live peacefully, joyfully in Him. “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28

My prayer is that you and I can slow down enough each day to smile, loud and proud and bright, because that is how God is calling us to live. Thankful for the chance to open our eyes in the morning and impact every life we encounter that day. If you, too, just blinked one day and all of the sudden found that “thing” in your life (stress, fear, worry…) stealing your joy, I hope you can take a step back and remember that if we have the joy of the Lord in our hearts, we should certainly ask our face to share that joy with others. Leave the rest up to our Provider. A smile for the cashier at the store. A smile for the frenzied mom pushing the stroller with one hand and holding groceries with the other. A smile for the person stopped next to you in traffic. A smile when no one other than Jesus is watching. More joy, more smiles, less stress!

Joyfully In Him,
Anna



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Paige Abigail

Image
“Do you have kids?” The days when that was a “simple” question to answer seem so long ago. “No, no kids yet,” was the easy answer right after my husband, Brendan, and I got married. “Not yet, but hopefully soon,” was the anxious but hopeful answer while we were waiting for God to bless us with a child. “Our first is on the way,” was the answer full of excitement and dreams coming true once we finally found out that we were expecting. Now, that question holds more emotion than I ever knew possible. “Yes, I have one precious daughter… she was born into the arms of Jesus.” This is my answer, my story, now. Paige Abigail was, and always will be, our first child. She is the beautiful blessing that made me a mom and us a family of three. Her story, our story, is not the one that we would have chosen for ourselves, but it is the one that God has entrusted us with, and one that I am honored to tell. Being a mother has been my dream ever since I can remember. It wasn't long afte...
Read more

Covered in Hope

Image
“Oh Lord, thank You for making me empty, so that You can fill me with more of You. I never thought I would or could thank You for this emptiness, but I can feel you filling me up right now, and I know You have only begun! Please use me and use this story You have crafted, Lord. I want to use it to glorify You, Lord, I’m just not sure how yet…” These are the words that I scribbled in my prayer journal about a week ago. It has been a little over seven weeks since our Paige Abigail went home to Jesus right at the 29th week of our pregnancy. We miss her every single day. Some days, my journal is filled with entries like the one above, and many other days it is filled with tear-stained pages of pleas for strength and peace. My emotions change almost daily, but one thing that I have found that never wavers is my HOPE in the Lord and the promises He has given us. This has truly been my anchor. I have never understood the verse from Hebrews quite as well and as intimately as I do now. “W...
Read more

The Gift of You

Image
My Sweet Paige Abigail, I can’t believe you’ve already been snug in our Savior’s arms for a whole year already. Time sure does fly. But I thank God daily for the gift of you! Even though I wonder all the time about what your sweet smile would’ve looked like right now, a year later, whether or not you would’ve had your momma’s dimples, what your precious little voice would have sounded like and what your first words would’ve been, along with so many other daydreams, I choose to focus instead on all the blessings that you have brought to my life. When we named you Paige, knowing it meant “young servant,” I couldn’t wait to teach you how to be a servant of the Lord. Little did I know that you’d be the one teaching me how to be a better servant of His. Although we are on different sides of eternity for right now, you, my sweet daughter, have already helped God teach me so much in this first year of loving you from afar, and I am forever grateful for that. Thank you for making me a...
Read more