It has been a quiet season for me.  After a year of chaos, we are experiencing calm and peace. It is nice. However, I have more than one friend going through just the opposite.  Dealing with relationship issues, or teenage issues, or aging parent issues- and for them, life is anything but calm and quiet.  I get calls, and all I want to do is hold my friends, love on them, and assure them it will all be ok. 

Women worry. Even though we all know, the bible says not to. Matthew 6:25-34 even tells us to not worry-
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? ...

My guess is, you know it well.  I don't know one woman that has mastered the art of not worrying.  Men on the other hand.  It 'appears' to be a rare instance they spend days and sleepless nights in a fit of concern and worry, and if they do, it is typically a catastrophic life event.  Men don't think like women- write as many books as you want (Mars or Venus, Saturn or Mercury), teach as many classes as you like- there is a gap in understanding that I believe will never be fully closed.  Perhaps it isn't meant to be.

Women are emotional and take everything very personal, deeper than men.  In the midst of an argument, your husband might say he's going to the store.  You take it to mean- "He's so angry he has to get away, he doesn't want to talk about it, he is trying to ignore it.." But all it means is- he's going to the store to get the oil filter he needed, or the soda you forgot to buy.  His odd timing of a trip has nothing to do with you, he just has NO idea how women think. Yet in our brilliant wisdom, we tend to make it about us, about the disagreement, about not getting along, communicating, etc etc..  We often make it about so much more than it ever was.

I've seen some pretty intense marriage struggles- in my own life and the life of my girlfriends.  I've both tried to help, and silently prayed.  I've listened, I've understood, and I've advised.  The perspective is often shaded by what we so strongly believe, instead of being clear about what actually is. Heartbreak, distrust, the many aspects of abuse- from emotional to physical, the threats, the silent treatments- they leave a spouse exhausted, and when we are exhausted, our vision isn't at its best.

There is only one thing I know for sure- when we can't see or understand the current situation, when we are depressed by the battle- it's time to change your perspective.  To gain an understanding, not of men or in particular, your husband, but of God, and where he stands in your life through those battles.  He isn't meant to sit in second place.  When things are good, we praise, we shout, we share, we celebrate His love for us!  We will scream it from the mountaintops.  When we are in a challenging marriage crisis, a worrisome bout of teenage collision, or in our own internal struggle of whatever it may be, God seems to not get to talk to us as much.  Oh he gets to listen- but the problem becomes that we are so busy listening to ourselves ramble about the worry surrounding significant life events, the worry about how to do this or how to do that, the worry of how will I ever trust again, will he come home tonight, who is he talking to on his phone-and the worry of-you fill in the blank, that we forget to stop, and listen to Him.

When life feels out of control, and you are experiencing something you have never been through, that has knocked you to your knees and cut you to the core-stop worrying. Though everything about being a woman makes you turn into survivor mode, and in that mode we turn on worry- because in our mind worry is simply analyzing and solving, and to analyze and solve something, you must think your way through it.  Stop thinking, stop analyzing, and start praising God, start thanking Him, start asking Him- then shut up- and start listening to someone other than yourself.

No, I've not mastered this what so ever, I have, however, realized I am very guilty of losing my intimate relationship with God in certain battles, because I was to busy trying to be my own David- but I act like a stone is what kills the giant. It's God that handles the giants in our life, it's God that I should be talking to. Worrying, no matter how hard you try to dress it up in "prayer" is an internal conversation about you, for you, and with you. 

Our faith is believing- believing and worry are like water and oil, when you mix the two- they will separate.

Have you ever walked into a room, looked around at the clutter and misplaced items, and said, "Nope, I need to clean up this mess right now.  I can't sit down until it's done."  I don't know if this is a mom thing or an anyone thing- but I know when it happens, we call this motivation! Motivation is often hard to come by the older I get, but when it comes, everyone may as well move on out of the way, because the freight train is comin!

There are periods in our lives that we hit the "motivation wall"- daily tasks seem impossible and nomatter how hard we might try, we just look at something in defeat.  Basically, giving up before we even start!  Some days for me, it's simply a pile of laundry, other days, it's socializing, some days it's going to church.  For some reason, it doesn't bother me to "skip it" that day.  Then, there are days it's more serious- it's getting out of bed, or talking to my friends, or eating.  The motivation wall is replaced with a bottomless pit- filled with many things- like pain, fear, anger, distress, worry, or saddness, to name a few. Floating towards the bottom of that mess, is me.

Yet, above all that darkness swirling around, is my God.  Some days, He'll talk me up on out of it, holding me gently, knowing just how to handle this fragile package. Carefully placed words just for the moment.  Some days, I hear him whisper, "Look around, look at the clutter and the misplaced items.  Get up Lisa, and get that freight train goin!" While God has the never ending power to pick any of his children up, I'm not sure he wants us to constantly live life like an infant just learning to sit up, not yet mobile and looking at us with those raised arms and big eyes that obviously say, "Pick me up please- carry me please" There are times for God to carry us, and in certain times, we are meant to look up at our Heavenly Father and know, He's up ahead, as we walk on our own two feet, and he's leading us.

I don't know what clutter you are surrounded by.  I don't know if it's a heart mess or a mind mess.  I don't know if the clutter is more of an "I'm lost mess".  When you look around and see misplaced items like-strength, hope, faith, love, joy, delight, achieve, awesome, able- scattered all around, then I pray that instead of a motivation wall, or pit of darkness and despair, and instead of sitting stagnant and unable, that you, my friend, will look ahead, and the brilliance of our God will be there- ready to hand you a basket full of motivation, and with his little engineer hat, he winks at you and signals-that the train is comin!

"Put Your Big Girl Pants On" is a statement that strikes some people wrong.  In many circles, it is a reference to getting off your rear, and doing what needs to be done.  You know- suck it up and get on with it!  So I can understand, that many would find it offensive.  Books have been written about it, and jokes have been made.  Recently, I realized that there are many meanings behind this phrase, and in a friends time of need, I found it useful to say it like it is, with the utmost Authentic Truth.

She was at her bottom.  One day, she revealed through her tears, "I'm in the bottom of my pit, and all I want, still, is my Jesus." She wasn't saying it with victory in her voice, she was saying it with a defeat I'd never heard, never wanted to hear from my closest and dearest friend.

In a moment, I knew- now is the time, she needs to hear something that will help, something that only comes from God.  So I shared, "Sweetie, you always use the 'put your big girl pants on phrase', but this is it.  You have to really put them on, it's time you let everything go, everything! Give it to God in a way that you never thought possible.  You must surrender everything."

Surrendering everything isn't exactly the picture we see when using the pants on remark.  Typically, we imagine becoming a tough "chick", shoulders back, maybe our nose even a bit pointed up.  We roll back those sleeves, and maybe some even 'spit'!  It's like a green light that suddenly flashes and we throw down the gas and go!! (ok, maybe that only applies to me in my red mustang! <wink> 

No.  This put your pants on was about being strong enough to surrender.  To know, that at the moment, you have no get up and go in you.  You have no more strength, even your tears are beginning to become tired. You're not only at the bottom of your pit, you have made a nice cushy bed, and you have no intentions of moving, because you have no energy left, no more fight, no more words and barely a breath.

It's in these moments of life, which we all face by the way, that we lean on eachother, that we all strive to say the right thing, the perfect response.  Ya well, I had nothing- except the one thing I know well, let it go and LET GOD!  A tough vision for women to embrace, as control is a difficult thing to give up or 'surrender'.

Next time your situation is more than you can bare, say it to yourself, "Put your big girl pants on', and remember that as you put them on, Jesus is stripping away that which you can no longer take.