Say Hey! It's Monday

Happy Monday to you!

It’s looking like a rainy day here in the Heartland and I am not complaining. We need a good rain.

Our weekend was super chock full of activities, as was the entire week preceding it.

A glimpse at the calendar last night revealed we are having a repeat this week.

Do you transition well from season to season?

I struggle a little switching gears and can sometimes get stressed out when our calendar has too many back to back events with very little white space in the margins.

I get overwhelmed.

It is funny because when we were raising our kiddos, there was no white space and I think I just went on coffee and adrenaline for about 25 years.

Which is probably why it seems like it passed lightening fast.

When their activities started disappearing one by one from the pages of our calendar, at first I was terrorized by the lack of events and activities that had filled every day for so many years.

We kind of function in what we adapt to, don’t we?

I have to confess that my natural responses to stress are not health-promoting.

Among other not-so-wise go to’s when overwhelmed:

I am an emotional eater…

prone to take a nap to avoid facing an overabundance of tasks…

a rebellious procrastinator who will do anything BUT the thing that needs to be done…

and an escape artist who will find excuses to hit a store or a coffee shop rather than attack her list of errands.

None of those things prove effective in eliminating the sources of my being overwhelmed.

It is always a fight to choose the right thing for me.

I have to make conscious decisions and keep a tight rein on my will to flee the more unpleasant tasks of doing what needs to be done.

And this too is part of being saved and sanctified.

I have a helper to keep me on task and also to lead me, at appropriate times, to still waters for refreshing and regenerating.

I just read a great quote last night in one of my devotionals, Ordinary Graces by Lucinda Secrest McDowell*.

Lucinda actually quotes from another book by Gail MacDonald**

Gail McDonald at some point focused on the instruction from Deuteronomy 30:19 as her focus for decision making with these two words:

Choose life.

She says:

“We can eat a candy bar or an apple but which leads to greater quality of health?We can watch TV or read a book, but which leads to a greater quality of growth? We can say a loving word or a critical word, but which conveys the quality of personal nourishment?”

I would add that the choice of our book is a way to choose life.

Also, when I think about the unhealthy choices I am prone to make in times of stress often lead me to speaking to myself in negative and critical ways.

Choosing well leads to more good choices.

I am endeavoring this week to choose life.

How about you?

What are your areas of weakness during times of change or stress?

Let’s pray for each other to choose well this week <3

*Lucinda Secrest McDowell, Ordinary Graces (Nashville, Abingdon Press 2017), 227

**Gail MacDonald, In His Everlasting Arms: Learning to Trust God in All Circumstances (Los Angeles; Regal, 2003), 151

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