Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

Seek

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If you haven’t already, you may want to go back and read Raw, Guilt , Beginning, and Anxiety before reading this post.

So why was I like this? Why did I have this insane drive to go and to do and to please and to fix and to be and to go and to go and to go?

I had no idea. I had been like this since forever. I thought it was just how I was wired.

I realized that I needed to identify the root of this problem. I did not want a Band-Aid to cover it up. I did not want to deny the issue anymore. I needed to start at the beginning so that God could heal me and re-train my heart and head to respond to life in a healthy way.

I surrendered the need to God, stopped to listen, and after several days, He revealed the root of this issue to me. It was quite simple actually. As a small child, I had started believing the lie that pleasing people is the way to please God. That making sure people are pleased with me and happy with me was the gauge that measured my worth as a Christian. That disappointing others was a disappointment to God. Conflict and confrontation needn’t happen because I would simply live to please.

And so I did.

In doing so, I somehow lost myself. I was serving my family. I was serving God’s people. I was knocking myself out doing and being for others what I felt they were needing and expecting me to do and be. If someone was hurting, I thought it was up to me to fix it. If someone needed something, I would drop everything to meet that need. If I hadn’t known of someone’s need, I felt guilty for not being aware.

There is a certain level of pleasing others that is healthy and good. We want to be a blessing to those around us. But the truth is: The only One I need to seek to please is God. In doing so, others will be blessed. My focus needs to be on God and His will for me. Not on others. And certainly not on self.

Satan doesn’t want any of us to thrive. He wants us to struggle, hurt, fight bitterness, and stay stuck in a pool of yuck and assume that it is just a part of this balanced breakfast.

Sure enough, he often tricks us into believing that our struggles are “part of our personality.” We think, “It’s just who I am.” As a matter of fact, he’s such a good deceiver that often, we don’t even realize that a struggle is a struggle. It may even be disguised as a “gift from God.” Satan takes truth and puts a slight twist on it so that it becomes a lie. He is the greatest of all deceivers. He’s a clever one, that Satan. Which is why seeking truth is so very important.

God was glorified even in the midst of my struggle while I strived to serve Him through my weaknesses. It’s just that God wanted to show me a better way. I needed to recognize Satan’s lies about what it meant to be a servant of God. And I needed to stop being deceived into thinking that God was only pleased with me if I served others around me until I passed out cold.

Remember my “high gear?” My always revved engine? I truly was working to glorify God with my Go!Go!Go! mentality and activity. I thought that always putting others first and constantly seeking to meet the needs of everyone around me was the way I was to serve God.

As it turns out, I was really seeking to serve myself. It was time for me to learn truth.

Continue reading: Stop

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Anxiety

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see our disclosure policy.

If you haven’t already, you may want to go back and read Raw, Guilt , and Beginning before reading this post.

~~~

Sit down. Be still. Chill out. Relax. I have been good at none of these.

I have always been – okay not always – but since about age 12, I have been running on high gear. I have been an old clunker of a car that only continues to run if you keep your foot on the gas pedal.

What? You only have new cars and therefore don’t understand the gas pedal pushing of which I speak? I’m thinking back mostly to a car I had in high school. The car would start sometimes and only when the weather was right, if I wasn’t wearing the color blue, and if it wasn’t the fourth Tuesday of the month. Starting it required that I pump the gas pedal continuously, praying that in doing so, I didn’t flood the engine.

Once the (blasted) car finally started, it could never sit idle. I had to rev the engine constantly to keep it from dying.

Me.  I have been the car that has a foot on the gas pedal, continuing to rev. And rev. And rev.

I didn’t know it though. I just thought that this was how I functioned. This is my personality, right? That is how I was able to get so much done in a day. This is how I do things. This was just me.

Or so I thought.

I am now learning that revving my engine in high gear should be saved for the few and far between moments when one of my boys flings himself off a mattress and into a metal bed frame, resulting in the need for a fast trip to the ER for stitches on his forehead. That should not be my normal, daily mode. Life is not an emergency, but I lived each moment like it was.

So that was me, and boy did I kick tail every day. I loved everything I was doing all day long. I love being with my kids, and teaching them. (Although I’m not a big fan of grammar lessons because really, why do my kids and I need to care about, much less identify, a predicate nominative?)  I love cooking and taking care of my home. I love writing and blogging and keeping in touch with all of my readers. I love Jesus and serving his people.

But somehow, I thought I needed my engine to be revved in high gear in order to do these things. There was no peace. Only a Go!Go!Go! mentality that kept me constantly on the move, constantly working to make sure I was being the best Christian possible, all the time, because this is what He’s called me to be and anything less was just not enough because, well, it just wasn’t.

Hardly anyone around me, even those who were closest to me – and I’m talking about my husband here – were actually very aware of my constantly revved engine. I mean, like I said, I certainly didn’t really recognize it. I thought this was just “me” and how I did life.

As so much of my yuck has been revealed to me by God the past few months and as I have shared it all (in detail) to my (longsuffering, amazing) husband – while he has been thankful to hear what God has been teaching me, he has also been surprised. He feels that I’m being too hard on myself perhaps. “Really Laura,” he has told me, “you have never come across to me as being this anxious. I see you as being driven, hard working, intentional – and yeah, you get a lot done in a day. But you do it all in love and with care. I really don’t see you as the crazy brained woman you are describing.”

Yeah, that’s because my revved engine was all pent up inside. It was in my shoulders that were constantly tight and stiff. It was in my head, which was constantly thinking about the next eighty-three things that “needed” to get done. So much for living in the moment! After all, the moment is just about to be sooo thirty seconds ago. Go!Go!Go! (Wow, get migraines much, Laura?)

I’m so grateful to share that God is helping me let go of the anxiety that has been driving me all these years. Hear the key words in that sentence: the anxiety that has been driving me. How dare I let anything as miserable as anxiety drive or control me, my attitude, and my actions? God calls me to serve Him, but like this?

I needed to let it go. But how?

Continue reading: Seek

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Beginning

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While many of you have shared with me since I wrote my Raw and Guilt posts that you can relate, that you have been or are in the same boat, or that you appreciate that I am being open – I believe I may have caused some of you to worry.

First let me say this: You all are rockin’ for caring so much. Thank you.  God is powerful and I can tell you are praying. Second, let me assure you: I am okay.  In fact, I’m more okay now than I ever have been. Why?  How can I be more than okay when I’m going through something challenging?

That, my friends, is what we call peace that passes understanding (Phil. 4:7). This is what James meant when he said to consider it pure joy when you face trials of many kinds (James 1:2-4). I had to become broken in order to see the beauty God was waiting to reveal.

God is working to help me break down and clear away yuck that has been inside my head and heart for a very long time. I’m learning how to be more fruitful for Him. I’m struggling, laboring, fighting hard, and am occasionally discouraged and weary. But I am not defeated.  In fact, the victory has already been won. I just happen to be on a journey right now to help me discover how to completely embrace that victory.

I love this difficult path that I’m on right now. Why? Because I don’t want to be the girl I was for 39 years. That girl was self-seeking, anxious, and almost constantly overwhelmed with life. Sure, I was a blessing to many and productive for Christ in many ways. God has used me, without a doubt. But learning to let go of self while seeking to become more whole for God? Yes! I want this!

Am I or should I be under a doctor’s care? As a matter of fact, I am. That’s actually what started all of this.

I was on a mission in September, 2012 to get on top of my migraine headaches and asthma. My migraines had been getting worse through the years, until I was having them at least twice a month. They lasted three days each time. Six days of migraines every month? No, thank you.

I found a natural doctor in a city nearby who has been giving my physical self a big time over-haul. I see her once every 3-4 weeks, and I have seen much improvement in my health during the past year. Nothing is a fast fix, as she is getting to the root of my issues, instead of just slapping on a band-aid. Through this process of physical healing, I am learning more and more about how our physical and emotional selves are intertwined. As my physical body has de-toxed, my emotional self has gone through major over-haul too. Layer after layer of emotional crud has been brought to light, and I’ve found that God wants to heal all of me.

Well now. It seems that God really intends for me to share more of this story. Put on your seat-belt. I’ll continue to share more of the lessons God is teaching me through all of this. I believe after I share more, you’ll understand why I really do find joy in this trial. Truly, there is a way to live life without freaking out, worrying, fretting, stressing out, being overwhelmed…

Continue reading: Anxiety

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Guilt

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I’ve tried several times to write about this, only to find my fingers paralyzed at the keyboard. I’ve experienced God at work enough during this past year to understand that the lack of words meant that God was saying, “No. Not yet.” And so I stepped away, waiting for God’s timing.

I’ve gone through rough times before. I’ve been through the refining fire and been taught tough lessons that have brought me closer to God. Those times were always accompanied by an obvious difficult situation – like the illness and death of my mom, or a major job transition for Matt that gave way to confusion and discouragement.

But this. This came at a time when all was well. Better than well, in my opinion. A thriving marriage, healthy children, growing businesses, a time of living our dreams. Life was good – and I asked God to show me His power and how He could use me best. After all, we should never get to a point that we feel we’ve arrived. To whom much is given, much is expected (Luke 12:48). I believe God expected more of me. I asked Him to show me what that meant. And He said, “I can’t until you give up your self.”

I didn’t really know that was what He was asking at first. All I knew was that life as I knew it began to change. I began to have more anxiety. I was having frequent migraine headaches. I began struggling with what has always come naturally for me, like inviting people into my home, giving of myself to others – wanting to be with people at all.

Which heaped guilt onto my anxiety. Didn’t God call us to love others? To serve? To sacrifice? To give of ourselves? What was the matter with me? What kind of Christian was I anyway?

I had found myself in the midst of spiritual battle, wrestling constantly with who I was, what God required of me, how I was supposed to love people, and in the midst of it all, how I was supposed to put dinner on the table.

(And here you thought that the Getting Ahead in the Kitchen eCourse and eBook were written as a normal part of my site. Truly, they were born out of my own need, solidifying everything I’ve always shared about preparing healthy food for days you don’t have time or energy to cook. In the midst of struggling emotionally and spiritually, keeping myself physically healthy became more important than ever.)

I’m getting a little bit ahead of myself. For now, here are some of the truths He is teaching me:

  • When we ask God to show us what He wants us to do, He will show us. When we listen, He will speak.
  • Spiritual battle is exhausting. Allowing ourselves to rest in the midst of it is wise and necessary. Taking care of our physical health is very important to our emotional health.
  • God is faithful to always provide what we need.
  • Sometimes we are called to serve; sometimes we are called to be served.
  • The Holy Spirit convicts us of our guilt when we are sinning, which leads us to repentance. But the nagging, worrisome, hopeless, unhealthy guilt that torments our thoughts does not come from the Father. It comes from listening to lies from the enemy.

Are you hanging on to unhealthy guilt that you need to let go of?  Join me in drop-kicking it in the name of Jesus. Trust me when I say that hanging on to guilt keeps us focused on self instead of our Savior.

Continue reading:  Beginning

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Raw

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It’s not like I’ve tried to hide anything. I’m pretty sure you all know I’m as real as they come.

I post about the times I burn dinner, shoot ketchup into the living room, overflow the bathtub, don’t get around to sweeping my kitchen floor for two and a half weeks, and yell at my kids for not going to the van when I’ve asked them three or seven times. I’ve made it clear that I haven’t a clue how to fix my hair, how to decorate my living room walls, or how to layer shirts fashionably (unless we’re talking about putting a t-shirt under a hoodie, because I have mastered that one). My front closet smells worse than a boy’s locker room and looks like a used sporting goods store threw up inside.

But being real and being raw are two different things. Being real means that I admit that I’m not perfect and that I make mistakes. Being raw means that I get on my knees, expose my weaknesses, and recognize my absolute need for a Savior.

I didn’t know how much I needed to work on “self” until slowly (or quickly, depending on how it has felt on any given day), God began breaking down walls of pride, peeling away layers of selfish sin, and teaching me how to be more fully His.

I remember asking Him to help me understand His power at work in my life. I naively assumed that meant He would reveal a couple of scriptures to me, and give me some “wow God you’re so neat and powerful” moments. Right? Because God’s lessons do usually come to us come in fluffy, bright packages that are bursting with bubbles, confetti, and goose feathers. Right. 

In many ways, the past year has been very difficult for me. While I’ve mostly been able to carry on with life as normal – caring for my family, writing and sharing with you here on this site, and participating in various ministries – I’ve also been in the midst of some hard core spiritual and emotional battles. I am weary. I am worn. But because of Jesus, I am victorious.

There is great beauty in becoming broken for Christ. His healing and fulfillment can only come when we absolutely surrender ourselves and become open to what He wants us to learn. As He prunes away at the pieces of my heart and life that are unfruitful, I find myself relearning what it is to be a godly wife, mother, friend, and servant. How to love as Christ loves. How to walk my days with the Spirit as a guide.

And through it all, I find that my areas of weakness truly are glorious, because that is where Jesus can shine through me best. That is where pride dissolves and humility reigns.

While God’s lessons aren’t without pain, He has provided me a soft place to fall. I would not trade what I am experiencing to become my old self again. He is faithful to walk this journey with me and to provide who and what I need during every painful and victorious moment.

Today, I’m thankful to be broken.  To become broken is the only way to become whole.

Continued here:  Guilt

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!