2019 Reflection: Themes I Observed

The turn of the year came fairly quickly for me, without much reflection over the past year. I had a purposeful reset in August, so the need to clear out time and set goals for the new year didn’t make my priority list.

I decided that December is my favorite month, not only because of all the Christmas festivities, but because of the very focused adoration of Jesus. I didn’t really desire to look ahead to 2020. I relished in savoring and pondering the humility of Jesus. I don’t regret not preparing for the new year, but now that 2020 is here, I am spending more purposed time to look back over the last year. A few themes have stood out to me, and I’d like to expound on two. The overarching difficult theme is that of overwhelm, and underneath it, limits.

I experienced the Lord’s grace as He shepherded me through, and I’m thankful for His Fatherly care. I pray you’ll be encouraged and helped as you read.

Overwhelm, defined

I appreciate Webster’s definition[1] of the word. He paints a vivid picture that captures how I felt much of the time:

OVERWHELM‘, verb transitive

1. To overspread or crush beneath something violent and weighty, that covers or encompasses the whole; as, to overwhelm with waves.
2. To immerse and bear down; in a figurative sense; as, to be overwhelmed with cares, afflictions or business.

I looked up the word whelm, too, out of curiosity. First because it sounded like a word, but I wasn’t sure (I’m remembering a hymn with it now!), and second, I thought it would help me better understand the word overwhelm. Sure enough, whelm is a word. And it means to cover something by immersion so that all sides are covered, but it also means to overburden. So, how much more overwhelming is it to be over-whelmed, if you’re already immersed and burdened by something?

In 2019, I was overwhelmed by my children, difficult relationships, media, and “stuff.” Seeing the definition of overwhelm gives new perspective to the matter.

I don’t believe the words “I can’t” are usually helpful in the Christian’s vocabulary, unless followed by, “but He can through me,” or something of the like. But I said it more times than I’m proud to admit. I said it in times of desperation, in which I didn’t feel like He could do whatever it was through me.

I do believe there are times when we can’t and we make it difficult for the Lord to do the “but can through me” part. Hear me out. I believe God is big, and able, and sovereign.

The Breakdown in relationship with the Lord

There is something dysfunctional about overwhelm, and when there’s dysfunction, it means there’s a breakdown somewhere in my relationship with the Lord.

The reason I say that overwhelm is dysfunctional is because throughout the Bible, we learn that the Lord upholds us, bears our burdens, helps us, lives within us, prays for us, and works both in and through us. The Lord of the universe lives closer than our skin, but somehow, we manage to become people who can’t handle the hard little things of life. Paul spoke to this in Phil. 4 when he said,

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

The Lord helped me to see my tendency toward overwhelm earlier in 2019, and I struggled the whole rest of the year to wrestle it down. If the Lord is at hand, then I need not be overwhelmed. But I was.

The problem, He helped me to see, was that I wasn’t slowing down to invite Him into the moments that I ended up capitulating to overwhelm.

He helped me to see that my functional theology was rather dysfunctional. And it was becoming a habit.

Admittedly, this was hard to swallow. The Lord helped me see a blind spot, and sometimes, it feels blindsiding to have one of these pointed out. You can translate this to mean that the Lord knocked a few chips of self-righteousness pride off the old block. I’m thankful He did.

So, I began to contemplate what slowing down to invite Him into the little moments of potential overwhelm should look like. I don’t have a neatly packaged answer to give you. This is one of those things in life that is a sloppy process, whether I like it or not. I mostly haven’t liked it. But, I do believe that it’s been profitable, and will yield long-term fruit.

What Slowing Down Has Looked Like

I mentioned four primary areas that I regularly felt overwhelmed, so I’ll shine a little bit of light into each of the areas. One overarching characteristic I’ve been able to recognize about each area is that of a lack of limits. It’s looked different in each area, and I’ll unpack it a bit. I hope it’s helpful to you, if you’re struggling in a similar way.

Overwhelmed by Children

Looking at the definition of “overwhelm” was helpful because the Lord is the one that gave me five children to care for, and while it may be more than I can handle without his help, He is with me in this. In other words, if I’m abiding in Him, I shouldn’t feel overwhelmed.

So why did I so often? At various times, I’ve struggled to be consistent in my role of authority with my children. It’s easy to let down my guard and suddenly allow little self-sovereigns to emerge. Rather than following through and ensuring that each child is functioning within his God-given limits, I regularly had one or two children violating the limits and getting away with it.

I have a preschooler and toddler who are in the thick years of training, with a decent amount of discipline needed. I home school my kids, and managing three children schooling at home, while parenting children who need a lot of attention is flat out hard.

The Lord has been gracious and patient with me as I navigate ever-changing schedules and responsibilities. There is constant readjusting with children, and sometimes, I fail to keep up with the necessary adjustments.

Slowing down in this area of life has mostly looked like stopping in the middle of an intense moment and praying, often out loud, for help. Or, going to another room to pray. I’m reminded of Susannah Wesley who had 11 children. She wore an apron, and regularly sat down on the floor and put her apron over her head. Her children knew that she needed to be left alone so she could pray.

There’s fruit in stopping right in the most inconvenient moment. Is it sloppy? Yes, but I’m learning that there’s little, if anything, in our lives with God that is actually glamorous. He’s concerned about our heart, not our image.

When I can exercise self-control in the moment, restraining myself from anger, irritation, a, unkind word, a harsh response, it is a testimony of the Spirit’s life in me (self-control!). It is an act of humility that says, “I can’t, Lord, and I need You.” There have been many, many times when I wasn’t sure if I could move past the “I can’t, Lord.” A shift to surrender needed to happen in my heart to get me there. I can’t control my children or what my day is going to look like, and letting go of both has been needed.

It yields the reasonableness Paul spoke about in Philippians 4. I want to be a reasonable woman, I really do. But it’s not going to happen when I charge through my day, not even willing to slow down long enough to see that when my child sinned, I sinned right back!

So, part of the overwhelm with my children had to do with limits. Them violating limits, me not upholding limits, and me not staying within the Lord’s good limits for me, which involve including Him in every part of my day.

Overwhelm with difficult Relationships

This has been a tough one. I suppose the biggest lesson I’ve learned over the last year is that I tend toward over-responsibility in relationships. I carry backpacks that are actually not mine to carry. This looks like apologizing for things that I don’t need to apologize for, bearing all of the blame when something is amiss, and carrying unnecessary guilt and shame. I tend to carry the responsibility to fix things, but the reality is that I can’t.

There is one relationship tangle in particular that I was wrestling through, when the Lord brought about this revelation. Believe you me, it was one of the most freeing experiences to understand that I could actually put something down. To be able to say to myself, “It’s that person’s heavy backpack, and they do need to pick it up and carry it. It’s no longer my responsibility,” was both load-lightening, but also difficult. What if the person never picks up the backpack? The relationship may never be reconciled then.

Another opportunity to surrender to the Lord.

It’s meant taking a few steps back from relationships in which people were subtly demanding what I couldn’t give. It’s meant staying within my God-given limits of marriage and five children, and all of the responsibility that it entails.

I appreciated Joe Rigney’s article, The Enticing Sin of Empathy, along with the Man Rampant episode featuring Joe Rigney. I read the article earlier in the year and mulled over it for months before watching him talk about it, and in that time, I both experienced what he spoke of, and recognized how my backpack carrying was ultimately not loving toward other people. I highly encourage engaging with both pieces (I’d love to dialog about them!).

Overwhelm with media

I love podcasts, and I appreciate the medium of Instagram, too. I use Facebook to keep up with a writing and leadership group I’m in, and Twitter keeps me up to date on what I need to read. So, the main two sources of consternation were podcasts and IG.

I love to learn. I always want to be a learner because I want to max out any capacity I have to glorify God, which necessitates learning. Podcasts have become an excellent way to be an ongoing learner because I find them engaging (I’m not an audiobook person), and I can learn about a myriad of things! I spend about four to five hours a week on the treadmill, and it’s the perfect diversion.

(I do listen to music, too, and I am known to belt out the tunes. I’ve been informed that, “Sorry, Mom, you don’t have the best voice, especially when you’re on the treadmill).

But I’ve found the sheer volume of helpful information out there has crept into too much of my brain space and become noisy. Hence, the overwhelm. I have five children, remember, and they are already noisy.

I’m finding with the more children I have, that I value and need more silence and solitude. Parenting many children takes a lot, and I need a lot put in me so that what’s worked in can flow out. I’ve found that just beneath the surface, I feel like I don’t measure up to all the amazing podcasters and their guests. I found myself becoming discouraged. So many great ideas, so many thoughts, so many people doing a lot of good things. But I can’t keep up with it all. I can’t communicate all my good thoughts and ideas, and do all the good things I want to do.

It began feeling like constant relationship without any break. I can’t do that in real life, and it turns out I can’t do it through podcasting either. I haven’t broken up with podcasts, but I’ve slowed down significantly.

A good bit has been written about the love-hate relationship so many of us have with Instagram. I’ll just say that I enjoy life and myself much better when I’m not on a lot. I’m regularly asking the Lord how to navigate the platform, because I don’t think I should abandon it. One way I am seeking to look at it is like an open-air market. I want to bring something valuable to offer others, and while I’m there, I want to receive those things that are of value, too. I don’t want to buy cheap, processed, fake wares. I also want to make the most of my time, not squander it.

Again, the theme of limits.

Overwhelmed by “Stuff”

A quick word about “stuff.” Seven people live in my home. A good deal of material items can easily accumulate when that many people live under the same roof. I’m not a fan of clutter, and while my home doesn’t need to be immaculate, I want and need some degree of order. At some point, I realized that I’ve allowed too many things for my kids to enter our home, and that it wasn’t helping my children learn how to be good stewards. It was actually a huge stumbling block toward this goal, because they had way more than they could handle. Not only that, but it added to the feeling of being overwhelmed. So, we simplified the kids’ rooms (read I’ve given away a lot) and it has yielded more peace, and an environment where my kids can thrive.

Patient Father

I’m so thankful that the Lord is not in a rush to make me like Jesus. It would hurt far worse than it already does. He’s helped me to see how slowing down in these areas is part of my becoming like Jesus.

I’ve been reminded over the last month that He is willing to work slow growth in me, because He loves me. He’s not a knee-jerk reactor in the moment like I can be with my kids. He doesn’t dump all of the wisdom, insight, and understanding into my head and heart in a moment, but over a lifetime. And, He has beautiful boundaries in His relationship with me. He is my Father, and I am His child. He will not let me carry what isn’t mine to carry.

To Him, it’s not that long of a time before I will be like Jesus.

[1] http://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/Overwhelm