Worry Never Got You Anywhere.

As I sat with my father drinking coffee on the back patio of our favorite little local haunt, we spoke of the events in the last few days, weeks, and months, and how they’ve affected me and our family as a whole. For those who don’t know, there’s been some deaths and some near-deaths surrounding my loved ones and there’s still a lot up in the air that requires more faith in God than most things visibly call for. It’s not been easy, between internal struggles and external physical pain.

I spend far too much of my every day dwelling on one word, one concept: worry. I do it religiously. I worry more than I pray. And where it gets me does me no good – I wind up surrounded by anxiety, I become considerably irritable toward the people around me, and for what? It holds absolutely no ground. It shows on my face. People ask what’s wrong, and I relish in that attention, no matter how aware I am how unhealthy this practice is. It’s no secret that my problems frequently stem from the fact that there has not risen an occasion by chance for me to talk about the minor things that have worried me. So instead, I wait and I wait. I wait until something’s built up into a big old cloud above my head and unleash the storm onto whoever is around. Which is generally my mother or my boyfriend.

During the winter and early spring months, I was surrounded with exams, cold weather, and an icy-themed life built up around me. I was cold when I walked outside, and I was cold to people around me. I won’t lie and say that’s been solved, by any means, and if anything I’m learning to speak my mind with fewer censors than I’ve ever had, and I owe a lot of that to dating somebody who encourages me to not keep anything in. I’ll admit, that’s been a nice and enabling change. So for that, thank you to my boyfriend. Some of it comes from my own personal growth and learning about my real identity in God. That’s been a cool and rewarding journey in and of itself, because my “voice” (paraphrasing my counselor of three years here), which was shut down at a young age, resulted in a severe case of unwillingness to share anything at all. There is remarkable counter-activity that’s grown out of knowing and dating a man who doesn’t share that struggle and uses the perspective that I don’t have to help me grow.

What I did before I knew how to share my thoughts and opinions is simple: I worried. I thought through every possible circumstance and every outcome of every choice I could make. I spent hours poring over what I did wrong and the opinions of the people I’ve interacted with.

Let me take a moment to emphasize how unhealthy this is. First, it’s a delusion of control that absolutely does not exist. I have so much less control than I feel or think. Sure, it’s fun to pretend, to make choices and say we predicted the outcome. But the most comforting thing in the world to me is knowing that it’s not like that. You do your best. You be honest. You talk to people and love people and spend time investing in people. But at the end of the day, every single breath is a gift. A gift that comes straight from God.

So once I’ve come to terms with this, which happens three or four times per day, the next thing that I need to address is that my identity is never going to be in what I accomplish or how much I earned, spent, or learned. Though all these are important in their time and place, it will never have the power to define me. My definition and my identity can come from only one place, and my name is Gwenyth Carol, daughter of God via Jesus the Christ, and I am beloved, I am who I am supposed to be, and every day is only a lesson and opportunity to grow in exactly that. There is so much you can do with this knowledge, though, and that’s where step three comes in. What are you going to do now that you know you are God’s beloved? When the most important thing in the world to my eternal is already taken care of, the most influential thing I can do then is possible. The chief purpose of man, to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. How cool is that? I’ve already got everything I need to do what is going to fulfill the desire in me to be complete. It’s there and it’s tangible.

Keep this in mind as you go through every minute of every day: “Worry is letting something that’s not God speak to you.”

How cool is that?

A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste

“A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste” – United Negro College Fund, 1972

I hope I’m not the only one who’s been faced with a choice of what to do to pass that last hour or two before work, and ends up staring blankly into space – or into a computer screen.

It’s something we all face, and it’s something I greatly dislike.

Yesterday, as I was making my daily commute between campuses of my college, I was zoning to music that I really wasn’t getting anything from. It occurred to me as I was pulling onto the road that would lead me to the beginning of my final exams for the year, that I waste pretty much all of my time. I don’t mean that I do nothing, really, on the contrary. What I invest in is either myself or passing time between things. I pull out my phone while on my favorite gym elliptical and play a new game I’ve downloaded, or check and recheck my email. When there’s an enlightening or thought-provoking novel sitting right in front of me.

It’s a form of procrastination, in a way, and in a way, I think most things we do are forms of procrastination.

What am I avoiding? This is my new question, which gets asked multiple times in a day, sometimes hourly. What is it that I’m sitting here staring at Facebook waiting for? Or, that classic relatable first-world complaint: returning to the refrigerator to see if any new food has materialized.

What am I avoiding?

The answer can vary, I suppose. I will never claim to have that answer. What I do know is that there are environments in which people can find themselves eager to create, eager to learn, eager to invent or devote their minds to. But more often than not those brilliantly created minds end up in a job that really doesn’t use them. We settle. We go with the easy choice, without pursuing what we may discover a passion for. A fear of failure drives us invariably.

You’ve heard that question many times: What would you attempt to do, if you knew you could not fail? Well, cliché as it may appear, if you don’t realize that profoundness I ask you to take another look at that question, and really think it through. Would you continue sitting at a desk, browsing the Internet while you think about how much you don’t want to write that paper? Will this really fulfill you, accomplish what it is that you set out to do?

What if you were to sit down in an environment that allowed you to experiment with all different ranges of thoughts, from new creations to technology to falling in love to exploring unreached mountains? What if you took five minutes from your assigned paper and wrote about something you used to love as a child? Don’t let yourself get stuck wandering about between rooms of your house or apartment not knowing where to go next, instead, while you wander, let yourself think of the greatest aspiration you have ever had – and then ask yourself if it’s still there. If it is, pursue it! If it isn’t, ask yourself why not.

Once you’ve answered that, there’s no harm and no reason to keep yourself from returning to those things you could once devote your world to. If you decide that’s a chapter in your past, great! Is there a chapter you’re afraid to begin? Where would you need to begin, in order to make it to that place you’ve been thinking about when your mind wanders?

My mother, while I began my first ever physics class in high school, learned alongside me without my advantage of a textbook. So instead of following that rigorous scheduled learning, she took to her favorite sciencesque Web sites and self-educated on black holes and their relation to the microscopic subatomic particles that make up everything. I think that’s pretty cool.

For me personally, I’ve spent some time coming to terms with the fact that investing in people, the gifts God’s given me, and personal creativity, are some of the most non-wasteful uses of my time. We all operate under this mentality that the best you can be is the most productive, most moneymaking, most selfless, most knowledgable. But at the root of all of this is that you can do nothing without proper care of the only thing you really can influence, which is yourself.

I don’t have answers. I will never pretend to know things for sure. But I know how to ask questions.

What is the best way to ensure that your time is used in the least wasteful way possible? Is it to invest it in other people? Learn everything you can and publish a journal? Graduate high school, college, grad school? Move up in ranking in your job? What is it that matters most?

If I Didn’t Exercise So Dang Much.

I spend a lot of time at the gym these days. I’ve been cautioned by several concerned friends, family members, and well-meaning personal trainers that overexercising can do detrimental things to both my mind and my body. I’m fine, I always assure them. I know the risks and I have it completely under control. I accompany this explanation with a smile and a newfound avoidance of regular interactions with these people.

Without going into detail that will be addressed some time later, I’ve struggled with eating disorders and exercise addictions for going on three years. Anyone who knows someone who has dealt with this or has dealt with it themselves can tell you it’s not an easy place to be or an easy place to recover from. It’s a daily challenge and it hurts. I cry, I shake, I run, I eat, I panic, I rest, I do it again.

Continuing with the topic at hand, now.

When conversations are born surrounding my self-admitted addiction to exercise I shy away from acknowledgement that anything is wrong and look for the first opportunity to change topics. I’ve lost some touch with the ability to rest and move slowly through my day. When I’m stuck behind a slow-moving car, immediately I believe I’m going to be late to wherever I’m headed, even if that’s home for the evening.

Situations present themselves that I could do incredible things for. Self sacrifices are possible every day. I don’t know how accurate it is, but the thought crosses my mind at least once every day that I could save a life, if I weren’t so busy. There are young mothers walking in the cold or the rain that I could offer a ride if they needed to get their baby warm. I’ve seen people on the side of the road or on corners, obviously asking for money or even a listening ear, to whom I want to give just that.

The word has become known as the “s-word” around my closest friends. I’m not allowed to say it of myself if it’s in a self-berating manner or if I’m having an especially difficult day. But sometimes it’s true, especially with my time. I can give money, if I have it, as easily as I can pick a flower. But my time, on a daily basis, is a struggle to sacrifice. So, the fact remains true that, in this area at least, I’m selfish.

So what do I do? I don’t know. What does anyone do when they identify a problem in themselves? All I’ve really come up with so far is the most simple and yet brilliant of solutions – pray. Which should, in my opinion, apply to everything. So that’s what I do. It’s still a daily struggle to give up a little of my time, especially in the morning before I head off to class, as this is the time I see myself most productive and I think that, if it doesn’t get done in the two or three hours before school, it won’t get done.

So I pray some more. I’ve been given a boyfriend who understands where I’m coming from and challenges me on a regular basis to let go little by little. It’s yielded some results but not as much as I’d like, and I think to myself what life will be like once I live with someone who I’ve committed to sharing my life with. If that isn’t a scary thought, what is? But with the grace of God, a constant battle of years can be won. So I pray some more.

For Richer Or For Poorer: thoughts on stepping out in faith while dating

 

 

Late in the year of 2013, my boyfriend of nearly a year stepped down from a company he had been a key player in for six years. Not a year prior, he had begun to train employees at the Chick-Fil-A corporate headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. He left both the local restaurant he had faithfully served at and the more intensive job simultaneously, as well as moving out of his home for the first time. Big steps, right? We thought so. Many conversations and cups of coffee later, we had established that it is a step out there in some direction of blind faith, putting himself into the care of God with no real goal or timeline in place. Of course I was scared. Selfishly, I had a sinking feeling this meant that all the talk we had already had about someday getting married would be delayed for God knew how long (and still does).

We are serious, and yesterday we celebrated our year-and-three-month-iversary. Admittedly, until I wrote that down I hadn’t been aware of it with everything else happening. But I’m sure he will forgive me.

Nobody could have told me what this combination of life changes would bring about months later, when attempts by my boyfriend to begin work again were seemingly thwarted at every turn. A later conversation revealed that both of us had very specific ideas of how the next few weeks, months, and years would unfold. God would pull through later before we could blink with some incredible job opportunity, something that nobody saw coming. Every word of caution he heard earlier last year would come back to virtually slap our “ye of little faith” friends in the face.

Suffice it to say, that didn’t happen. It has truly proved to be a test of faith which James talks about in his first chapter, about how it develops perseverance and all that. I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing as straightforward a spiritual 2×4 as I have with James 1:2-4. “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you are faced with trials and temptations. For the testing of your faith develops perseverance.” Could there be a more straightforward way of telling your readers that the hard things in life will only build character?

Ten months into the relationship with little to no financial worries and a very liberal budget, the commencement of 2014 was difficult, to put it lightly. Emotional strains on both sides have manifested and are still causing added stress to minor setbacks as well as several tragedies that have struck. We were in for a rude awakening when I paid off my student loan around the same time that his income ceased altogether, setting my bank account back to nearly square one. It feels good to not be in debt, but it doesn’t feel good when I can’t remember the last time I bought something for either myself or my man.

I used to receive “just-because” gifts, flowers or a necklace. We went out to eat fairly often, and treated each other to activities that actually required payment. Additionally, living a mere ten minutes away was, as I’m now understanding, a significant privilege. Now, on the northern side of the city I live southwest of, he lives thirty minutes and a good chunk of my nearly nonexistent income in gasoline from my house, and it’s hard to make a visit happen between our schedules and situations. To put it gently, since November and December of last year the general ambiance between my S.O. and myself has become far more stressful, distant, and at times hurtful or bordering bitter than it was when we began this adventure in mid-January of 2013.

The biggest struggle has been faith in the sovereignty of my God. I find myself developing in my selfish attitudes sometimes, nursing the idea that I’m owed more than I’m getting or that something isn’t right. I should be happier, I should be better at making my boyfriend happy, basically every issue in the book. I fell to my knees as he left my house after a short visit last night feeling broken and hopeless. I cried out to Jesus in my desperation and he heard me. He sent my boyfriend back up the steps to give me a long hug and to hurt with me, to tell me again that he loves me. I don’t remember much of what was said, but I remember coming out of the embrace feeling assured that I’m not fighting this fight alone, that God’s holding my hand and my best friend holding my other hand.

What I want to come through remembering is that it gets hard, it stays hard, it doesn’t improve, we become hopeless, we selfishly hold on to every small hope we can find, and then we open our eyes and cry out to God.

And God comes through.

I saw a little glimpse of that last night. God is faithful. He’s given my boyfriend, in the last week, four job opportunities; two of which are career-promising, and instead of having no choices, the challenge became to choose between good and best.

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” Jesus in John’s gospel said it better than any words that will ever come out of my mouth. I can only keep my eyes where they were created to look, to my maker, to the only hope I really have.

photo by Gwenyth Shedor 2013