Calming A Frazzled Mind

It's funny about people. What stresses one person, is no problem for the next. But what that person absolutely could not do, is simple and acceptable for another. When I think what it must be like to have to dress up, drive to work, and do jobs, with a boss watching me, it makes me seriously think I'd rather be a street person. Yet I clean up adults' messy diapers, shovel manure, and do all kinds of boring and unpleasant things every day on the farm, with hardly ever a second thought. Maybe a rich executive at work in the fifty story bank building would feel horror at the thought of having to do THAT every day!

God made us all different and unique. Each person has their own strengths, and set of stresses which are hard to cope with.

I'm an honest-to-goodness homebody. I like to stay home. It's as simple as that. It is obvious that God created me this way, since I could never have been happy, raising so many of His children, if I wanted to be somewhere else all the time!

The daily duties of raising six, fourteen, twenty-six children was something I did like a well-oiled machine. I learned as my family grew, and it worked very well. During the third decade, fourteen was an average number to have at home, but I had twenty-one children at home for a time, including college age children coming and going. I WAS a well-oiled machine! I had done the same things every day for so many years, I didn't even have to think about what job was next. I was, in fact, usually in the process of doing several jobs at once. That, while I talked to several children at once, and changed a couple of diapers along the way. No problem. I fell asleep when my head touched the pillow, slept like a rock, and woke ready to go again, unless a baby had kept me awake during the night.

But times when outside pressures add up, can really wind up my mind. Like a sparkler of sharp, blinding anxieties, the approaching stresses take turns streaking across my consciousness, one after the other, in a neverending whirl. Over the years, I have learned to consciously jerk myself to a stop and pray. Otherwise, the worries take the joy out of normal daily life. Years ago, I sometimes found myself crying, without even knowing why. It was a time like that, when God began to gently show me how to protect myself, by slowing down, and asking Him for help. Satan knows this frailty of mine, and it appears that he has spent a large amount of time and energy, trying to keep me confused and unhapppy. This is clearly a great sport of his.

Praise God, over the years, He has shown me strategies of coping, for this over-active brain He gave me. In order to keep this brain-frazzling from happening, at times of very high outside stress, like months of hospital appointments for a dying child, I have to purposely and drastically slow my mind down. I make myself focus on one thing at a time.

Now that I am older, and don't have nearly so much work to do, (nor as much energy) I pace myself on my jobs. I use many more hours, to accomplish what I did in a short time when I was young. Praise God, I do not have a child who is dying, any more. That part of my calling is through. Now I am free to work on things I want to do, the way that comes naturally to me. During the day, I do one job, then read for a while, do another job, then write for a while. All my jobs get done, with no stress at all. At the end of the day, I am peaceful, happy, and grateful to God for the gift of another day.

This purposeful gearing down is a real help, while growing older. I have learned ways of being gentle with myself. If I don't mother myself, who will? And I've had lots of practice mothering! Mothering myself is a healthy, nurturing thing. Everyone should mother themselves, gently, kindly.

Outside stresses are simply my weak area. I've learned to accept, and deal with it. I am so grateful that my Heavenly Father is with me all along the way. He will not suffer my foot to be moved. If I keep my focus on Him, and my hand in His, He helps me to cope with one thing at a time. And I, His beloved child, continue to be at peace, praising my Heavenly Father, for all His kindness and mercy.

It is not God's will that we suffer in our minds. Emotional suffering is of Satan. God is the author of peace. Turn your eyes upon Jesus, and remember. Ask Him for peace, and He will give it. And His peace is full, complete, and absolutely comforting.

* Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. John 14:27