Showing posts with label Worry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Worry. Show all posts

Day 25: NEAR ("Everything Else" or Emmanuel?)

Each day during The PURSE-onality Challenge: "A Holiday-Ready Heart" in October, Untangling Christmas by Karen Ehman and LeAnn Rice, will be our give-away prize!  

Enter via the Rafflecopter at the end of the blog post or click here to enter!



Day 14: TRUST (+ How Each PURSE-onality Can Get Day Overwhelmed)
Day 15: PATIENT (+ Practicing Now for Patience Then)
Day 16: NO RECORD (+ How to Have Grudge-Free Holidays)
Day 17: TRUTH (Each PURSE-onality's Take on Truth)
Day 18: PERSEVERE (+2 Cures for Procrastination)
Day 19: BLESS (Your Feelings Can Help You Choose)
Day 20: BUILDING (20+ Ways to Build with Words)
Day 21: HOLD (Hold Back, Let Go, and Step Up)
Day 22: FRUIT (I Didn't Think...I Was a People-Pleaser!)
Day 23: CLEANSE (A Holiday-Ready Home)
Day 24: REJOICE (We Share the Same Heart Rate)


Today, I’m delighted to be part of the blog tour for Mary DeMuth’s new book Everything! 

Here's the trailer for Everything (you might recognize at least one face!):

 (Can't see video?  Click here to view Everything trailer via YouTube!)
I’ve invited other members of the Everything Launch Team to share their blog posts in the Link-Up before the Rafflecopter. I hope you’ll be as blessed as I’ve been by visiting their blogs and hearing their hearts!

And if you’d like to enter to win a KitchenAid stand mixer in “Everything blue,” check out Mary’s Pin It and Win It contest!

Here are the blogs I wrote as I read Everything in September:


And here are a few thoughts for today:


During the holy-days, I want to focus on thanks-giving.
I want to focus on Christ-mas.

But I get caught up in “everything else” so easily:
  • the chatter in my head
  • circumstances outside of me and my control
  • events that trigger an impulsive, “Why, God?”
  • that ever-present, oh-so-personal bully: perfectionism
  • busy-ness that back-burners my time with Him
  • a copped attitude I wanna keep just a little longer
  • seeing the storm rather than the storm-stiller
  • the bogs of I want, I wish, and I have to

Let your gentleness be evident to all. 
The Lord is near.
Philippians 4:5 (NIV)

The Lord is near.

He gave up everything
to be my everything
so I can become everything 
He created me to be.

Emmanuel: God With Us!

(For “everything else” there’s…) 


Your Turn:
  • What "everything else" are you planning now to not get caught up in then?
  • What does Emmanuel -- God with us -- mean to you today? 
  • Anything else on your heart!


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Dear Teenage Me: Don't Worry that She's not Happy


(We're gearing up for The PURSE-onality Challenge holiday edition–"A Holiday-Ready Heart"–in October! Stay tuned for full details...Warm-Up Week starts September 24!)

September 5-23, I'll be blogging through Mary DeMuth's soon-to-be-released book Everything: What you Give and What you Gain to Become Like Jesus. Each week, I'll be giving way a copy of the book. You can enter the drawing via the Rafflecopter at the end of each Everything blog post!

* * * * *

Don't let the smile fool you. I worried about
my "horns" (feathered hair). I worried
about my teeth. I worried about my
thick glasses. I worried about...
"Worry is a weighty monster with poisoned tentacles. It clutches at our minds, steals our breath, our will. It lurks. It pounces. It colors how we perceive the world. 

But God whispers peace in the midst. 

Me? I listen to my frenetic shouting, preferring my self-imposed rants, and I don't hear the Almighty's peace."

Incessant worry and overwhelming anxiety were normal for me growing up. The women in my family modeled this self-perpetuating control cycle, and I learned it well at an early age:

 1.  fear the dozens of ways things could go wrong; 
2.  work to exhaustion to prevent them; 
3.  congratulate self when everything turns out fine;
4.  repeat.



In honor of this week's release of Graceful {for young women}, Emily Freeman (author of Grace for the Good Girl) has invited bloggers to write letters to their teenage selves. 

 Here is mine:

Early in my eating disorder;
I went on to lose another
20+ pounds.
Oh Sweetheart,

Stop trying so hard.

I know that’s hard to hear. You pride yourself in being a do-er. A hard worker. An achiever.

But you’re trying to achieve the impossible.

Trust me on this one:

Nothing you do will make Mother happy.

Your A+++ grades won’t make her happy.

Your becoming a teacher won’t make her happy.

Your marriage won’t make her happy. (In fact, she’ll be so unhappy that she’ll refuse to participate at all. You’ll plan your wedding all by yourself.)

Your children won’t even make her happy. 

Oh, she’ll enjoy them. And you’ll have a few years during which you’ll feel like you’ve finally earned her approval.

Wearing my mother's dress,
gloves, shoes, and belt.
(The hat was my idea!)
But then they’ll grow past the “cute” stage, become teenagers, and about the time you’re launching your firstborn to college, Mother will start losing her memory.

And then, for the first time in your life, you will see her happy. She will not know you, but she will be happy.

As Daddy and John comfort each other by saying that she’s “the happiest she’s been in 45 years,” it will occur to you that they knew her when she knew them and was still happy. 

You will realize then what you can not suspect right now:  Mother has been depressed for your entire life.

Her unhappiness is not your fault. 

You did not cause it. You can not fix it.

You can not make her happy. No matter what you do. No matter how hard you try. 

I left home shortly after this photo
was taken, but my craving to make
my mother happy followed
right after me.
Nothing you do will make Mother happy.

Stop trying so hard. 

Start seeking refuge. 

Learn now–when you long for the love she can not offer–to run to Him.

Learn now–when you cry for the comfort she can not give–to hide in Him.

Stop trying so hard.

Stop trying.

Stop. 

Be still.

Know Him.

Know that He delights in you;

He always has, and He always will.


In His Delight,



Your 45-year-old self



Your Turn:
  • What worries are at the top of your worry list?
  • What would you say to your teenage self?
  • Anything else on your heart!

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Grace for the Good Girl: Worry, Fear, & Anxiety

August 1-14, I'll be blogging as I read through Emily Freeman's Grace for the Good Girl. Each week, I'll give away a free copy of her book! Enter via the Rafflecopter here.


Bloggers: I'll be hosting a link-up on Friday on "the try-hard life" and/or "good girl syndrome." If you've got something to share, the link-up will be live at 12:30 AM Pacific. Would love to have you join the conversation!



“Worry is a thief, Fear is a liar, and Anxiety is their trembling, furrow-browed baby. I have lived with this dysfunctional family for the better part of my life. Sometimes I live with them still. 
Worry robs me of the peace I know is available. 
Fear lies and says there is no peace at all. 
And their immature, screaming baby Anxiety keeps me up at night with her unrelenting cries of what if? and what now? and what will they think?”  
What if?
My grandmother lived through the depression. She always traveled with several hard-boiled eggs in her purse. Half-way through any flight, regardless of her hunger level, she’d pull them out and smell up the plane. 
Oh, I was trained to worry at a tender age!  
What if…
  • ...there’s no more food?
  • ...she stops being my BFF?
  • ...I miss a point on this test?

What now?
(Setting:  The eating disorder unit, just before our first family group counseling session.)
My counselors: “People change, Cheri! Just you wait and see!”

Me:  “You don’t know my mother.”
My counselors:  “Just you wait and see!” 
Me:  Maybe they know what they’re talking about!
(After the meeting)
My counselors:  “Cheri, sometimes you just have to accept…”

My worst fear had come true: there was no hope for me. My only “hope” was to try harder.
What now…
  • ...that I have two babies and a difficult marriage?  Try harder
  • ...that we need my income but I dread teaching every day?  Try harder
  • ...that I’ve fractured T7 and can’t do what everyone needs me do?  Try harder

What will they think?
The summer I was 9, a boy at day camp asked me, “So, do you read the dictionary for fun?”

“Of course!” I answered honestly, thrilled to have found a kindred spirit. Only he didn’t talk to me the rest of the summer. 
I can still feel the flush of shame as it dawned on me, days later as he and the “in” girls snickered at me from a distance yet again, that he hadn’t asked a question. 
He’d delivered an insult. One I’d been too dense to recognize.
I grew into a mashup of Sanguine PURSE-onality with hypervigilant anxiety.
What will they think…
  • ...if I talk too fast? too much? too loud?
  • ...when they see the cat and dog fur on the couch?
  • ...about my out-of-season mis-matched Ross clothes? 

Fear drives.
But Love leads.
“God can do anything, you know – 
far more than you could ever 
imagine or guess or request 
in your wildest dreams! 
He does it not by pushing us around 
but by working within us, 
his Spirit deeply and gently within us.”
(Eph. 3:20 Message)

Your Turn!
  • How do you know the dysfunctional family of Worry, Fear, and Anxiety?
  • Which cry keeps you up at night:  What if?  What now?  What will they think?
  • What does “Fear drives. But Love leads” mean to you?

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