Encouragement from a Dusty Old Hymnal

When my husband and I bought our first house fifteen years ago, my parents quickly hired a moving company to bring me my piano (more out of their desire to get it out of their house than my desire to have it in mine!).  Since then we've moved the piano four times.  Every time, my husband asked if we could sell it and every time I adamantly said no.  Fingers rarely graced those keys until our daughter began taking piano lessons two years ago. 

This past weekend my level of stress and worry were so great that I wished I could just disappear (no judging - you know you've had those moments!).  It is impossible to be prepared for how much fear and anxiety comes with being a parent.  And when I got married being a caregiver at the age of 40 was not in  the plans.  Work . . . money . . . house repairs . . . check engine lights . . . it felt like the list of worries was never-ending.  The weight of sadness made me so tired it took all my energy to not crawl back into bed.  At the same time the jitters of anxiety made it impossible to sit still.  I found myself sorting through bins in our overstuffed garage.  In one bin filled with random items of mine, I found an old Presbyterian hymn book given to me by my grandma. 

Wandering up to my beloved out-of-tune piano, I began to leaf through the book pausing to peck away at the keys when I came across a more familiar tune.  I eventually came to one of my all-time favorites - He Leadeth Me.  I propped the book on the piano and began to play.

As I finished the song, I noticed the hymn on the next page.  It was one I did not recall ever having seen or heard before -- Far Off I See the Goal. 

Far off I see the goal - O Savior guide me;

I feel my strength is small - Be thou beside me;

With vision ever clear, with love that conquers fear,

And grace to persevere, O Lord provide me.

 

I set personal goals for all areas of my life - my kids, my house, my job, my health . . .  In this moment, though, my goals felt impossible.  It was too much.  Too hard.  Too overwhelming.  

 

I found comfort in this old hymn written back in 1925.  My goals felt extremely far off, but I could still SEE them.  They hadn't disappeared.  I hadn't given up on them.  And who is there to walk beside me and guide me?  My Savior.  How encouraging! 

 

Should earthly pleasures wane, and joy forsake me,

and lonely hours of pain at length o'er take me,

My hand in thine hold fast, till sorrow be o'er the past. 

 

Finding this prayerful hymn of guidance was just what I needed to regain my focus and be ready to jump back into life.  The moment of sorrow has passed . . . Let's go!

Happy ME Day!

Today I took a day off from work.  It wasn't a holiday.  My kids didn't have the day off.  My husband didn't have a doctor's appointment.  I took the day off just because I wanted to. 

It used to be that every few months I would get so worn down, stressed out and worked up that I would have to take a day off of work and crash.  I'd spend the entire day in bed buried under the covers blocking out the world.  By the end of the day I was slightly more rested, but really no more refreshed.  I called those my "Mental Health Days."

This past April I took the day off of work for my birthday and filled the day doing things that I enjoy doing.  I told myself that because it was my birthday, I would not feel guilty about focusing on doing what I wanted to do and not on what I thought would make everyone else happy.  I had a FABULOUS day!  It was relaxing and fun and energizing. 

It was so wonderful that I did the same thing the day after completing the Half-Marathon in May.  While on our family vacation in August, I made it a point to have a couple of "Me Mornings."  As soon as we returned from vacation, I looked at my calendar and scheduled my next "Me Day" -  TODAY!

I've discovered three keys to making my Me Days a success:

1) I don't spend the entire day in bed.  Looking back I realized that spending the entire day in bed actually made me feel worse.  My entire body would ache.  I'd physically feel more tired.  I have to confess that one of my favorite things to do is lay in bed and watch TV.  So I always spend part of my Me Days laying in bed - just not the whole day.

2) I do things that I enjoy doing, not things that I HAVE to do.  There are very few things in life that can't be put on hold for a day.  I always plan my day out ahead of time picking 2-3 activities that I want to do.  If I don't plan ahead, time always gets away from me and I end up doing nothing!  For example, today I watched my favorite TV show while drinking a steaming cup of coffee, crawled back into bed for a nap, got my hair cut (which I don't do often and really enjoy!) and then surprised my kids by heading to TCBY after school.  As I type, my kids and I are enjoying our annual viewing of Disney's Halloweentown; which to us officially kicks off the holiday season!  I'm feeling no need to get up and throw in a load of laundry - it is "Me Day!"  Finally, I've planned one of my favorite meals for dinner and then will be heading to my Zumba class.  The perfect ending to my day! 

Family Fun at TCBY!

3) I consciously block out all guilt.  I am the Queen of Guilt!  I took that title over from my mom years ago.  No matter what I'm doing I always have this twinge of guilt that I'm not doing something else with or for someone else.  When I stay at work late I feel guilty that I'm not heading home to be with my family.  When I leave work on time I feel guilty that I didn't finish one more thing.  When I go out to exercise I feel guilty that I'm not hanging out with my kids,  When I skip exercise to hang out with my kids I feel guilty that I'm not meeting up with my friends at class.  I could go on and on.  I'm sure that most moms can relate to this on some level.  On my "Me Days" I give myself permission to do want I want to do.  I tell myself  - literally talk out loud to myself - that I am pushing guilt to the side and focusing on myself for the entire day. 

Following these three guidelines have turned my "Me Days" into a time of refreshment.  I enjoy the time off rather than wasting it because I'm so mentally worn down and physically tired that I can't function.  I'll return to the real world tomorrow rested and ready to face my life. 

One of the first things that I'll do when I return to my life is fill out a PTO (Paid Time Off) form for my next "Me Day!"  Why don't you get out your calendar and schedule a "Me Day" just for you! 

Finding Silence in the Drive-Thru

We spent this weekend visiting our friend Bill.  It turns out that Bill is not a coffee drinker.  In fact, Bill does not even own a coffee pot.  (Seriously!?!?  Bill - I'm getting you one for Christmas!)  Being the type of person who has her coffee set to brew 15 minutes before her alarm goes off and who takes her first sip of the arousing brew before her eyes are fully open - this was a bit of a problem.  So in the morning, I pulled my hair back into a messy ponytail, grabbed the keys and flew down to the McDonald's drive-thru the moment my brain even considered waking up.   

This morning I pulled into a parking spot and enjoyed my steaming cup of coffee and flipped through the pages of a magazine. Thirty minutes later as I re-started the car and headed back to Bill's, I realized that I had just spent thirty minutes in silence.  Music had not been playing.  No one was talking to me.  The theme song to Good Luck Charlie or the sounds of players tackling each other on Madden had not been echoing around me.  There were no outside sounds such as traffic or even birds.  No interruptions.  Just silence. 

When was the last time I sat in silence?  To tell you the truth . . . I don't remember.  (When was the last time I looked at a magazine somewhere other than in the bathroom?  I confess that I don't remember that either!) 

As I drove, I realized that the car was still silent.  I had turned the radio volume down as I went through the drive-thru and had never turned it back up.  At first I felt a little strange.  There was a kind of white noise in my ears.  Then I realized that I actually felt calm and relaxed. 

Later in the day as I waited for my family to pack up their belongings (Driven by my caffeinated state of being, I had my stuff packed and in the car before the rest of the gang got moving!), I searched the web for "the benefits of silence."  One writer compared spending time in silence to plugging your cell phone into the wall - you get re-charged (www.omtimes.com).  Another compared the brain's need for silence to the body's need for food (www.arinanikitina.com).  Both agreed that spending a brief time each day in silence increases creativity and decreases stress. Several other articles talked about silence boosting the immune system, lowering blood pressure and regulating hormones. 

I found my favorite comment on the benefits of silence several pages into my search.  An article from www.top7business.com entitled Enjoy the Silence: The 7 Powers of Silence in Business said,
          "Those who enter a period of silence each day learn to hear the song of their heart. 
            They learn to listen to the song that only they can sing."

I have to be honest that I had never visited any of these websites before today.  I was actually surprised that after going through several pages of my Google search, I did not find any articles by prestigious universities or well-known (at least to me) authors.  Some major medical research center HAS to be doing research on the benefits of silence, don't you think?

Regardless of who is saying what about the benefits of spending time in silence, I felt refreshed by my silent time this morning.  Getting a break from the noise of the world and having the opportunity to mindlessly turn the pages of a magazine while joyfully sipping my hot coffee was a real treat. 

There is a McDonald's not far from my house.  Maybe I should drive down there for coffee on a Saturday morning every once in a while instead of making my coffee at home.  Though I'd run a much greater risk of running into someone I know as I sit in my car wearing my PJ's having my first cup of morning coffee than I did at Bill's house.