They started talking about how crowded our school was back in May, and my brilliant mind told a story of how I would have to go back to my tiny classroom–no wait–maybe I wouldn’t even have a classroom and would have to travel to borrowed rooms, since I was a part-time teacher. Cue full-blown panic. I do panic well. But… Read More
How About Putting A Time Stamp on Your Problems?
Sometimes I think I should rename my website, “Anxiety Girl.” Here I am again today, with my latest installment about worrying and what has been helping me overcome this lately. Let’s start with the worries and how real they are: Money and old cars and old houses and old bodies. Grown kids. Kids needing jobs. Kids and their money and… Read More
Leaving The Mental Track of Worry
Quaint, I thought, as I checked into the Locomotive Inn. It was a stop-off on the 12-hour drive to visit my mom over spring break. Then I woke up at 2:30 in the morning to realize Oh, a locomotive! I made a mental note to think more literally next time I was motel shopping. The train whistled only a stone’s… Read More
Three More Ways to Put Worry out of Business
My mom calls it “cauliflower ear,” which is what happens to wrestlers when their ears get pressed into the mat too many times. I will not post an image of this but will leave you to your imagination. “I’ve got cauliflower ear,” she says to me, when I’ve talked too long. You might be saying that today, after I go… Read More
Can We Really Stop Worrying?
I have another smokin’ hot car story. Really hot. Caleb called the day before he was to fly home for Christmas, reporting that he was driving and his car started smoking. He babied it back to his apartment and left it to sit over the Christmas holidays. So there I was, in the middle of the biggest spending time… Read More
To Help You Stop Worrying about Tomorrow
Prepare yourselves, my friends. School starts tomorrow, and there are every so many spiritual lessons God teaches me from my one room at the school house. Walk into my space right now and see how tidy everything is. Shelves are dusted, and #2 Ticonderoga pencils are sharp soldiers lined uniformly in their plastic drawer. At each student’s seat is a… Read More
Do This Before You Perform Your Normal Worry Sequence
I remember one night when my dad and brother were gone, and mom and I wanted to set the VCR to record a TV show. I can imagine my children shaking their heads at that archaic technology, but at the time it was super cool that we could do such a thing. So we got out the instruction booklet. I… Read More
Who Is God When Your Heart Is Heavy?
It was 1:30 a.m., and I was awake worrying about…things. You know how it is, because you have your own stuff on your mind this week that keeps making your shoulders sag and your sighs loud. I got out of bed, to move around and try to get my thoughts going in a different direction, but I couldn’t shift my… Read More
Worried That You’ll Never Arrive?
These blog posts come to you from an imposing, six-foot long, solid oak desk that my parents bought me years ago as a housewarming gift. (Mom wanted to get me a dining room table, but when I went table shopping I saw this desk and oh the love.) In the desk, there are three drawers on the right and two… Read More