To say that lately my life has been stressful would be an understatement. As so many parents do, I’ve caught myself juggling multiple things at once and keeping all of those balls in the air has led to more than a few hair-wrenching moments. You see, I had fallen into the trap of wearing too many hats.
In addition to pursuing my passion of writing full time – something that gives me great joy but doesn’t always pay the bills – I was homeschooling my son, managing a full-time teaching job and often taking care of everything on my own thanks to the travel required for my husband’s work.
All of this stress soon took its toll until one day, my husband suggested I quit my teaching job. The same job that provided our family’s health benefits and was a major source of our income. The cut to our bank account was simply too staggering for me to consider.
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Only I felt God nudging me to do it. “What?” I prayed. “Give it up? But…”
When you pray, do you often have a “but God” in there? I do.
“But God, we need the benefits.”
“But God, we need the money.”
“But God, that’s an awful lot of trust you’re asking me to have.”
“But God, my faith isn’t that strong.”
“But God…”
I continued to teach, and I continued to stress. Health problems popped up. Conflicts with my husband reached mammoth proportions. I was in tears a lot of the time. But I continued to seek God’s will for me—for us as a family.
Then one day, I started reading Lysa TerKeurst’s book , The Best Yes, on making decisions based on what is God’s best for you and your time, and my eyes opened. God showed me that the things I was doing were good things, yes. My intentions were pure. There was no hidden agenda. I was simply trying to make sure that my family was taken care of, that we were financially stable. But because I was saying “yes” to all of these “good” things, the very thing God had called me to do—writing for Him—was suffering. I couldn’t focus on what He wanted me to do. For the first time ever, I was going to miss deadlines. I was going to let my editors down.
I was stressed.
I finally came to the conclusion that God was telling me to let go. To trust Him. To lean on Him and not on myself.
I gave up teaching in December. It’s been three months and the funny thing is, we haven’t really felt the pinch of the cut in income. We have a private insurance plan that God has faithfully provided the money for each month.
And I feel free.
Free to listen and do what God has called me to do. Free to write my stories about His love for His children and His longing to have each and every person come to know him as Lord and Savior. Once again, God has proven Himself faithful—and my stress level is dramatically less!
