Balance
He holds all of creation together…… (Colossians 1:17)
And just like that, 2018 is behind me and 2019 is suddenly right before me. I spent some much needed time over the holiday break considering where my heart, my mind, my focus is and how I need to enter this new year. I chose to disconnect from social media just prior to the holidays, and as I have done this before in years past, weighed carefully how I want to commit my time going forward. Life is stressful to some degree at all times, not just some of the time, but ALL of the time. How do we handle this? How to cope? What do we do to find our way into a healthier state of mind, and sustain it life long?
For me, it’s my faith in Christ, and healthy habits I have adopted over the years that keep me balanced. When I am off-balance, it definitely shows. I’m grouchy, short-tempered, emotional, go on a tangent about whatever mess appears to be right in front of me and proceed to push everyone out of my way to get it done myself, and when I can’t take much more I will isolate and completely separate physically from my current situation. When I finally realize I’ve come to the end of it, and pull myself together, I can begin to re-set my focus. It’s easy, very easy to become lazy, complacent on a day to day basis. The consistent monotony of life, all that we are responsible to accomplish every day, can leave us asking the question, “Is this really as good as it is gonna get?”
I remember early in my marriage, before we had children, how I longed for this kind of feeling, this rhythm of life, and the things that “The Jones’s” seemed to have, that we didn’t have yet. The battle to find self-worth because I wasn’t quite thin enough, or I didn’t make a lot of money, or we didn’t have that furniture, or we didn’t have a house, or I didn’t have a busy enough social life, or ……. You get the idea. I could go on and on. At some point, key people in my life help me bust through that false message the world was slamming in front of me, and to re-focus my life purpose on what was true for my life and what mattered most. I am witnessing as my children grow up, how the intensity of this false message is so much greater and it is so much louder for them than it ever was for me. There are pressures, and expectations, and opinions, and ideas, and so much information coming at them at all times, and it is an immense challenge as a parent to help them find their way through it all to their own balance. As a parent, I know my responsibility is to care for them and influence them to be healthy, thriving, connected and caring human beings on this earth-but no matter what I say and do to impress upon them, it is ultimately up to them to choose how they will live out their lives when they leave our home one day. From their first breath, til the day they go to be with the Father, I recognize my children are not mine-they are God’s. And so, I have this choice to make-I can trust my children fully to my Father’s hands, or not.
This is a difficult choice every single day, but a necessary one. It doesn’t make it easy to handle when life throws me a surprise and something happens to one of my children that I did not expect-an injury, an illness, a poor decision, etc.-BUT, it helps me to find my breathe again. Somehow, the shock and the pain is lessened, knowing my Father God knew it was going to happen and has a purpose in every moment that plays out in this life.
As I am walking into this new year, I’m choosing to take time daily to acknowledge what a beautiful thing it is to live in the light of Christ and see how He holds all of creation together. How much He loves me and the new grace He has for me every morning. This is not something I hope I never take for granted.
There is life to be lived, there is hope to be found, and there is joy to be shared if we choose it. I’m thankful for what God has done for me, how He has blessed me, and I’m looking forward to what is ahead of me!
