Lauren Sparks

I felt a huge weight lifting off my shoulders today as I completed a particular task.  I mean, I actually feel physically lighter.  Do you know the feeling?  If you are anything like me, I fear you are all too familiar with it.  And the relief is so great right now that I just wanted to talk to you about it, my friends.  I’m not sure how long the feeling will last, so I want to bask in it.  Roll around in it and jump up and down in it.  Because most of the time lately, I’m feeling overwhelmed instead of relieved.  I sense that you know this feeling too.  I’m stretched a little too thin for my own liking right now.  Working two part time jobs, coaching, volunteering, wifing (spell check is trying to tell me wifing isn’t a thing, but I say it is), mothering and grandparenting leaves me with not enough heads for all my hats.  But I love ALL those hats.  I want to wear them ALL and more importantly, I don’t really feel God calling me to give any of them up right now (accept maybe the coaching – but that’s an entirely different story).  So what to do?

Continuing in this overwhelmed state is not really an option.  I don’t like it.  I have never been one to thrive under stress or pressure.  I simply feel stressed and pressured.  When my plate gets too full, I feel like I am a jack of all trades and master of none.  And I SO want to do a good job at all of these.  My jobs are a source of joy to me, and a little helpful extra income for my family.  And there is NOTHING (except my relationship with God) more important to me than my husband and kids.  Both of my volunteer gigs are acts of service to the Lord, and I want to be available to help my step-son and daughter-in-law – whose very full arms are holding 2 biological kids and 3 fosters (all under the age of 4).  I happen to know, though, that I need down time to feel sane.  And it’s in short supply right now.  I need a little time to read and veg, watch tv and cuddle my dog, enjoy my husband and rest.  I cannot work every day until I fall into bed asleep and maintain my normal, sunny disposition.

I read this quote recently from Cindy Crawford:  “Life is where you’re at.  Whatever you’re doing is enough.  You don’t need to do everything well all the time.  When you live your life like that, it’s a huge relief.”  Well, that may be easy for billionaire super-model Cindy Crawford to say, but how does an average (average looking, average talent, average income) feel like enough?  I don’t think lowering our expectations of ourselves is really the solution.  I have to differ with Ms. Crawford on that point.  I believe that anything worth doing is worth doing well.  But we have to check our motivation.  Scripture tells us “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.” Col 3:23 NIV  When we are striving for excellence to please our Heavenly Father, we may find that it releases us from some of the grind created by striving for earthly success.

If you are finding yourself a bit (or a truck load) overwhelmed, might I offer a couple of suggestions? Please understand that I haven’t mastered that peaceful, easy feeling, so I’m listening in on my own advice.  Now, with that warning, proceed with prayer and thoughtfulness.

First, examine your schedule.  Even though I don’t feel God’s call to lighten my load right now, that doesn’t mean I won’t in the future.  And if we are honest, we put way to much stress on ourselves by jam- packing our days (or our kids days).  We all need margin.  If you are running from work to appointment to practice to activity every day all day, I guarantee that it’s too much.  God created the idea of Sabbath.  And rest is not ONLY needed on Sunday (but if some of us would start there, it would go a long way).  Children need unscheduled time to enjoy their childhoods and we all need breathing space.  Enough space to rest and commune with God on a daily basis.  Some of you aren’t liking my first bit of advice, but here is the second anyway:   examine your motives.  If you have studied your schedule and nothing is screaming at you to be eliminated, then ask the “why” of each activity.  Are you working to please God, or man?  Do you find joy and peace in it?  Do your children find joy in the activities you have them enrolled in?  If you can’t answer a resounding “yes”, cut it out (said with Joey Gladstone hand motions)!  And once you feel that your scheduling is centered in God’s will for you and your family, press hard into His strength to achieve excellence.  You got this!  You are enough.

So…I am obviously a big fat liar.  Since the books I read are unquestionably much more interesting than my life, I find myself once again inspired to write by something I read.  Even though I said I wouldn’t.  Oh well.  I’m just going to go with it.  The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows takes place in the UK in 1946 as residents were still finding their new normal following the end of WWII.  The practice of rationing caught and held my attention as I read.  So much so that I did a little research online.  During the Second World War, the UK imported about 70% of its cheese and sugar, nearly 80% of fruits and about 70% of cereals and fats.  It also brought in more than 50% of its meat and relied heavily on imported feed to support its domestic meat production.  Because of this, one of the principal strategies of the Germans was to attack shipping bound for Britain.  The shortages were sometimes extreme, so citizens had to register at selected stores, which would provide them a coupon book redeemable for certain goods in certain amounts.  Many items that were considered luxuries were simply done without.  (All percentages found on wikipedia – so you know they are accurate.)

The book club that this novel revolves around became desperate for sweets to serve at their meetings while under strict sugar rationing.  One member experimented with potatoes, which were in large supply.  He fashioned a pie filling from mashed potatoes sweetened with beet juice (yuck!) and a crust from the potato peelings.  I’m struggling to hold down my afternoon snack just thinking about it.    In fact, I struggle to picture myself – or anyone I know for that matter – adhering well to forced depravation.  Most members of our culture can’t even limit the many things we have deemed “necessities” for the sake of staying within our own budget, much less for the sake of our country.  Even if we were embroiled in another World War, I cannot imagine that we as a country and individuals would do anything but cement ourselves further and further in debt to maintain the lifestyles to which we have become accustomed.  I am including myself in this spoiled lot.  I would definitely not be the first one to the Ministry of Food office (as it was called in the UK) volunteering in a flash of patriotism to give up my creature comforts.

Likely because some Christians are in a season of Lent, the talk of rationing turned my mind to fasting.  One is a government imposed sanction and the other, a self-imposed discipline,;but I can’t control the winding pathways of my brain.  Many Christians give up something for Lent (the 40 days leading up to Easter).  This is a form of fasting – denying yourself a person, place or thing for the sake of turning your focus to the death and resurrection of Jesus.  It was not common in the denomination of my upbringing to observe Lent, but I have done it occasionally as an adult.  I choose not to do it every year for fear that it would become a ritual with no true significance.  Instead, I have only fasted from something for Lent when I felt a strong calling from God to do so.  My main experience with fasting has been fasting from food (although it could be a variety of other things).  When Shelby was small, I instituted the habit of fasting from all solid foods for a 24 hour period once a week to focus on praying for her healing.  Her non-stop seizures and repeated hospital stays drove me to seek my Heavenly Father like never before.  I can’t pretend like my fasts were always done with the right spirit OR that Shelby was healed as a result.  But fasting isn’t really about results.  It’s about relationship, and I had some sweet times of fellowship and some hard, but needed lessons in trusting Him.

I have noticed that oftentimes Christians will get uncomfortable and even defensive when I talk about fasting.  Even if I am just speaking of my own experiences, others often feel compelled to give me their list of excuses for why they don’t fast.  Let’s face it.  It’s inconvenient – and sometimes painful.  But no more so for us than for all those who fasted in the bible.  I would NEVER insinuate that what God is calling me to do, He is also calling you to.  So I don’t need to hear why anyone doesn’t fast.  That is between each individual and God.  But I am starting to examine my own excuses.  For reasons that I won’t bore you with, I discontinued my weekly practice a few years ago, and have only occasionally returned to this well.  But I feel God calling me back into a season of regularly depriving myself for the sake of gaining more of Him.  If you would like to learn more about this topic and look at associated scriptures, I will refer you to a blog from my church and one from a friend that I have found very helpful.  Click here and here.  And have a blessed Easter remembering that He Lives!