Joy In the Overwhelming-The Ladies Conference Message

Sometimes you walk away from something with your arms raised high and tell the whole world, “Oh yeah! Nailed it!”

I didn’t feel like doing that after I shared a short Bible study at my friend’s ladies conference last January.  I felt like doing a silly jig and saying, “Oh yeah!  I’m a dork!  And I really hope those ladies were blessed despite my blunders and imperfect elocution!”

Here is the blog version of the Bible study that I shared from Psalm 16.  The theme was joy and my title was Joy In The Mundane which for some reason I thought I should change to Joy In The Overwhelming.  Mundane…Overwhelming…whatever.  It’s hard to find joy in either of those things so who cares what the title is.  The blog will be mostly the same as the study I shared except for the part where I misquoted the most famous hymn of all time. 

My misquote was “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.  I once was lost but now I’m fine…”

Now I’m fine…I can’t believe I said that.  I’m sorry John Newton, I really am.  It made for quite a few good laughs though.  I think one of my friends snorted coffee up her nose at that particular part.  I guess I’m here for the laughs not the elocution. 

I’m sorry you missed the live version with all the blunders but just pretend you were there and enjoy some encouragement in the blog version.  Ahem…

JOY IN THE OVERWHELMING…a look at how David chose joy in his overwhelming times.  Please turn to Psalm 16.

Your tear-starter is your own.  Don’t tell me what it is unless you want to.  It may be hidden or it may be obvious for all to see.  It may be a result from your disobedience or just simply that we live in a fallen world.  It could be raising toddlers, fighting with your husband, a debilitating disease, prodigal children, the death of a loved one, wanting to be married, laundry, money, the boogie man, acne…

Whatever it may be that sends you to dark secluded area and starts the tears.  Whatever it may be!  I pass no belittling on whatever is overwhelming you at this time.  King Solomon said there is a time to weep.  This message is not me telling you, “GET OVER IT AND PUT YOUR BIG GIRL PANTS ON!”  I cry all the time.  I feel like crying right now just thinking about crying.  Life is dog gone hard.  Being a grown up is a pain in the butt.  Sin is everywhere and it’s annoying.  I’m strapped to the mast of a sea-torn vessel.  The waters are calm one day and they’re ripping me a part the next.

What ho, Christian woman!  It’s what your heart is doing in the midst of those overwhelming waters that I want to talk about.

My husband had to leave to serve his country for a 14month tour overseas.  My first child was 3, my second was 2 and I was due with my third baby in one month.  My  husband had to leave.  I stayed home and screamed at my toddlers and cried in my bathroom. I was completely overwhelmed.  I walked outside one afternoon and found my neighbor working in his front yard.  He very awkwardly avoided eye contact with me.  I realized he probably just heard every word that I just yelled at my toddlers.  I was horrified.  I felt so convicted.  
Well the next deployment was only a short year after the first.  After he came home, my neighbor told my husband, “I don’t know how she does it.  The kids will be running around like crazy in the backyard and I just here her singing away doing her housework.”  Wow.  Two completely different Rachels. 

That is exactly what joy is for me.

JOY IS SINGING WHEN THE WORLD IS SCREAMING.   

Shepherd boy David absolutely originated the modern day musical.  He just sat down and sang whenever he darn well pleased.  He wrote a song every time he felt overwhelmed.  He sang randomly and with his whole heart just like Gene Kelly.  He even danced when the Ark of the Covenant came back to Jerusalem.  King Saul was freaking out and hiring sooth sayers and making unholy sacrifices and there was David pulling out his harp and singing to sheep and soldiers. 

Think really hard right now about what your overwhelming thing is that sends you to a hiding place to cry.  What’s your tear-starter?  What’s your thing that you really want to find joy in but it’s so overwhelming?  Where’s your cry corner?  Pretend you’re there right now…hiding and crying.  Let’s look at what Psalm 16 would have you do when you’re overwhelmed.

Verse 1… “Preserve me, O God, for in You I trust.”

The first thing out of David’s mouth is “Save me!”  So not fancy!  Just simply “Save me!”  David says, “for in You I put my trust.”  When you are strapped to the mast, the mast is Jesus!  Oh how strong and true and mighty to save is He!  Do you trust Him?  I don’t mean I’ll-trust-Him-in-calm-waters-but-not-in-the-storms but I mean trust-Him-in-absolutely-every-kind-of-weather-condition-fluffy-clouds-and-cumulonimbus?!?!  If not, then take off the straps and let your rebellious little butt slide around the boat.  Have fun with that.

Verse 2… “O my soul, you have said to the Lord, “You are my Lord, My goodness is nothing apart from you.”

You are crying in your cry corner and you have asked God to SAVE you and you have decided to completely trust him and behold the next glorious step is to declare that you are NOTHING a part from Him.  You will literally feel the weight of life roll off your shoulders and out the door.  God is good and perfect and loving every moment of your life.  He is the strong, firm, comforting mast of hope against your back through every up and down of the waves.  You are a floppy, land-legged nincompoop without Him.  Tell Him so like David did. 

Verse 3-4… “As for the saints who are on the earth, “They are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight.”  Their sorrows shall be multiplied who hasten after another god; Their drink offerings of blood I will not offer, Nor take up their names on my lips.”

You are in you cry corner and you have asked God to SAVE you and you have declared that you are NOTHING a part from Him and now it is time to choose to be his saint and to REJECT how the world would deal with your cry corner problem.  In David’s day, the world would make sacrifices to idols and bow and scrape and plead with their gods to take their problems away.  They would have a freak out party.  King Saul became a rotten, bitter, hollow shape of a man because of how he dealt with his overwhelming problems.  What did David do?  He would sit down and burst into song. 

Verse 5… “O Lord, You are the portion of my inheritance and my cup; You maintain my lot.”

“The portion” in David’s time meant “the very most important part”…it would be like getting your own parking spot, right up at the front door of Target.  That parking spot would be your portion that Target set aside just for you.  You are in your cry corner and you have asked God to SAVE you and you have declared that you are NOTHING a part from God and you have chosen to REJECT what the world does when they are overwhelmed and now you make God your portion.  What a sweet life this is with Him strong against my back and the wind in my face and my destination before me!  Jesus, thank You for being my portion!

Verse 6-10… “The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; Yes, I have a good inheritance.  I will bless the Lord who has given me counsel; My heart also instructs me in the night seasons.  I have set the Lord always before me; Because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved.   Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices; My flesh also will rest in hope.
For You will not leave my soul in Sheol, Nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption.”

You’re in your cry corner and you’ve done all that cool stuff that the other verses talk about and you need to make just one more declaration before you rise up and face the world. 

Life is lonely…but you are not alone.  Life is painful…but He bore the ultimate pain for you.  Life is ups and downs, storms and calms…but He is steady and strong.  Say this out loud…

I know You are here and you hear.  I know You are here and you hear.

You ready now leave your cry corner now?  You can’t stay there forever like Saul did.  Stand up.  Memorize this last verse.

Verse 11… “You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

Sweet heaven.  We will be there so very soon.  No more cry corner.  No more fighting, or laundry, or sickness, or sin of any kind.  Just sweet heaven and His perfect presence. 

FOREVERMORE. 

Please sit down and write a song in those overwhelming times.  Sing someone else's if your song writing stinks.  Maybe one of these song writers who weren’t really officially song writers!  They were regular hurting people like us!

John Newton spent most of his younger years as a slave ship captain.  He would take his ship to the coast of Africa and idly stand by while hundreds of innocent people were ripped from their homes and packed into the bottom of his ship like animals.  Then he gave his life to Jesus.  God forgave the captain of a slave ship.  He did what David did in his overwhelming time.  He sat down and wrote a song… “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me…”

Louise Stead stood on the beach and watched her husband try to save a boy’s life.  They both drowned.  Over the next year, her church family came together and carried her and her son through the financial burdens and extra cares of life.  She did what David did in her overwhelming time.  She sat down and wrote a song… “Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus, just to take Him at His Word…”

Horatio G Spafford first lost his son to scarlet fever, and then most of his wealth to the great Chicago fires. Two years later the steamship Ville de Havre sank in the Atlantic ocean taking all four of his daughters with it.  On the voyage to retrieve his wife who survived the voyage he did what David did in his overwhelming time.  He sat down and wrote a song… “When peace like a river attendeth my way.  When sorrows like sea bellows roll.  Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say...It is well.  It is well with my soul…”

Cry Corner Prayer

Jesus I’m overwhelmed

Save Me

I am Nothing Without You

I Reject How The World Deals With The Overwhelming

You Are My Portion

I’m Getting Up From Here And I'm Going To Sing A Song

I’m sorry if you’re in a storm right now.  I rejoice with you if all is calm.  You have a Savior and His name is Jesus.  Sing a song to Him!  Right now while your strapped to that mast and the waves are crashing into your glorious face!

It will all be okay.  Maybe not until Heaven but it will all be okay.  

 In His perfect, precious, presence is fullness of joy.  That joy is coming soon and very soon.

Turning Squirrels Into Boys and Boys Into Men

I have to start this subject off with a shout out to my favorite man.  When I met him he was a twenty-year-old man not a twenty-year-old boy.  That is because he had parents that raised him to be a grown man not a grown boy and because he has a Savior that forgives and saves.  My husband is a Navy Recruiter.  He talks to boys all day who are on the brink of becoming a man.  He talks to boys that were raised to be men and he talks to boys that have been raised to be boys and will probably remain boys for most of their life.  Maybe they join the Navy and the Navy turns them into men in spite of their parents raising them to be grown boys.  He sees these two opposites walk in and out of that door ALL DAY LONG. 

 He tells me all the time…

“Wife of mine, we are raising our boys to be grown men NOT grown boys.” (paraphrased)

 At this very moment...I…well…

 I feel like I’m raising SQUIRILLS…

 They’re.  Just.  So.  Squirrelly.  And naughty.

If you follow my Instagram you see all the clever, silly, wonderful moments.  Every other moment they’re being naughty squirrels!  I don’t Instagram that because that’s just rude but it’s true!  The other day we were in Winco and two of the squirrels took turns slugging each other in the stomach as hard as they could.  Then when we were in Costco an hour later they were taking turns says ‘I love you.’  A lady stopped and told me how wonderful it was to hear them and how well-behaved they were.  I smiled at her and smiled at them.  Inside my head I was thinking, “Yes, the little dear things.  I’m going to take them home and ground them for life and then I’m going to eat an entire bar of chocolate with no one touching me or talking to me.” 

 Yes, those little dear squirrels. 

 How do I turn the squirrels into boys that turn into men… 

 I don’t know.  How am I supposed to know!  My oldest squirrel in only eight!  You tell me how in the world I do this.  If you saw me in Winco you could plainly see that I have no idea what I’m doing.  Moms ask me boy advice all the time.  I give it freely and then I go home to my boys and feel like I need to call that mom back and tell her I actually have no idea what I’m talking about. 

Here it goes anyway…

I know these three things to be absolutely helpful.  They have proven themselves over the eight years of raising my boys to be absolutely fruitful.  I know they are a vital part of raising boys to be grown men and not grown boys.  When it comes time for them to walk through the doors of a Navy recruiter office, or a job interview or their own front door to take care of their wife and kids it WILL BARE FRUIT, darn it!

 I said FRUITFUL not FOOL-Proof. 

Fruitful: you garden goodness into their souls and God grows the results over time.

Fool-proof: I gardened into those squirrelly souls all year so there is no way that they would or should disobey.

 I know my boys are going to make foolish choices.  I still do.  They might walk away from everything I taught them.  I know God will give them the choice.  I put all this spiritual work in so that their lives may be fruitful for Jesus but it will be their choice when they leave my home.  Ephesians 2:8-9 says, “For by GRACE you have been saved through faith and that not of your selves.  It is a gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”

 It does NOT say, “For by my parents I have been saved because they didn’t let me get away with anything.”

 Please, please, please stop freaking out….raise your kids the way God says to because it will be fruitful not fool-proof.  You change that mind-set and you will do a lot less freaking out.  God gives you grace every day.  He’ll do the same for your kids when they’re grown.

I know these three things apply to your girls too.  My girl is calm and quick to please (though there’s trouble hidden in that but that’s a different blog post).  My boys are wild and squirrelly.  My girl takes up about a square foot of space.  My boys need an acre if you want to keep your hearing and your sanity. 

These three rules are instrumental with keeping the squirrels from taking over your house.

1NO TALKING BACK.  No negotiating.  You give an instruction, they do it.  You say sweep the floor.  They say “Yes Ma’am” and get off their keester and do it. Remember I said this will be fruitful not fool-proof.  My kids still talk back and then I usually say “Drop and give me thirty burpees” and then we move on with our day.  Don’t you let them talk back and if they do, give them a consequence.  I teach your squirrelly boys.  I can tell the ones that get to negotiate.  I can also tell the boys that don’t get to negotiate and are just squirrelly like mine.  Can’t hide a negotiator.  They are the crazy rabid squirrels.

OWN UP TO MISTAKES.  They will mess up.  Teach them to take responsibility for their mistakes.  Teach them that the people around them will always be affected by their choices.  Their mistakes could ruin plans, feelings, and things.  What they do matters.  They need to care about caring.

SQUIRREL MUST EXERCISE.  Get them outside.  Running, digging, gallivanting…maybe not the last one.  The couch will ruin lives.  I mean it.  I’ve seen it. When a boy is using his physical energy in sports and outside play that’s all the less energy he’s using on driving you crazy with the squirrelly-ness.  I put the boys in wrestling this year.  I know, right?  Nothing more manly than that.  I saw improvement in their self-awareness.  They are learning how to direct their boundless energy.  To get out there and conquer something with your physical strength should be VERY much encouraged in your boys.  Sometimes they use that energy to slug each other in the stomach in Winco but we’re going for fruitful, for crying out loud!

This list is not exhaustive but I’m exhausted.  It’s hard to live with squirrels.

Behold…

If they just learn the above three things what kind of grown up would walk into my husband’s recruiting office?  A grown man or a grown boy?  Does he respect authority?  Will he be man enough to own up to his mistakes?  Will he rise up in manly strength and fight the good fight? 

I say let’s do this!  I say let’s turn these squirrels into men!

Hold on.  I need another cup of coffee first. 

Okay.  Now let’s do this.