By Dr. Amanda McKelroy | February 26, 2021
Recently, I allowed myself to get so overwhelmed that I forgot my purpose. In life, I always want to be like the little boy saving the starfish. He was playing on the beach with his Grandpa when the tide went out, leaving hundreds of starfish stranded on the beach where they could not survive. The little boy started running from starfish to starfish, picking them up one at a time and flinging them back into the ocean. His Grandpa watched for a moment before calling out to the little boy, asking why he bothered when one little boy couldn’t make a difference to the hundreds of stranded starfish. The little boy picked up another starfish thoughtfully and answered his grandpa: “I can make a difference to this one!” then he flung it back into the ocean with a smile.
My calling in life is to make a difference. If I give up on the one starfish because I’m overwhelmed, I cannot fulfill my purpose! Not long ago, while overwhelmed, I made a decision without slowing down to pray about it on a day I wasn’t spiritually full. A decision needed to be made – whether or not to accommodate my afterschool students participating in the Christmas program. Several groups collaborate to put a wonderful program together every year. From a scheduling standpoint, including my afterschool student is a hassle. My students are just arriving from school when everyone else is leaving for the day. A piece of information was presented to me as if it were a cold, hard fact – that scheduling accommodation would not be made this year for my afterschool students. I was informed that my students could practice independently and then join the others on the night of the performance without opportunity to participate in a dress rehearsal or full run-through. When I was presented with this information, I made a horrible decision. I didn’t go to the mattresses for my kids. I was already so overwhelmed that rather than face potential conflict, I chose to exclude my afterschool class from the program. I told myself it was because there was no way I would expect them to do well without opportunity to join a full rehearsal and know what was going on. There’s no way they would behave correctly during a performance without being involved in a full rehearsal! Plus, only a few students were confirmed to be in attendance. Armed with my excuses and in a highly emotional state over not being included in a full rehearsal, I wrote a parent letter containing an explanation that sounded so lame I was embarrassed. But the decision was made, our kids were out.
The following day I opened my mouth and inserted my foot regarding the Christmas program. I was still highly emotional at the decision to not make scheduling accommodation for my students which forced me to exclude them and said so to the head honcho of the whole program. I had convinced myself that I had done what I had to do because someone else backed me in a corner with their decision and it was all their fault for not including me in making that decision. Long, tear-filled story short, with the help of the not-overwhelmed, not-emotional head honcho I came to two realizations: 1) I should have fact checked and verified the information before acting on it. Turns out it was miscommunicated to me and only partially correct. 2) I exercised weak leadership and took the easy way out by making a hasty decision in an emotional state of being when I should have taken a moment to be still, asked the Lord for guidance, ensured my emotions were removed from the equation, and waited.
Thankfully the powers that be were swift to communicate the correct information and the air was cleared. They parted waters to ensure my afterschool students could participate, and we contacted our parents who all said they would still attend. The night of the Christmas program all of my students who said they would participate came, excited and ready! We had around 100 adult visitors at our church that night from our childcare center, all of whom got to hear the Gospel presented through the program and from our Pastor.
I’m so very glad we got my poor decision rectified in time. I will never again waver on the importance of including my students in the Christmas program. Every student who comes brings with them adults who will get to hear the Gospel and that’s more important than any amount of hassle. My purpose in life is to make a difference in people’s lives. What better way than to use my leadership position and influence to introduce them to Christ? There is no greater priority than that, and I will not be so weak ever again.
At some point, we all find ourselves overwhelmed and aware that something needs to give. I believe that allowing myself to get to the point of being overwhelmed means I passed being stressed out six bus stops ago, and I’m probably either quite backslidden or at least running on spiritual empty. The logic is simple: a stress problem is a prayer problem. What happened to believing in the words of Jeremiah…
“Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.” ~Jeremiah 33:3
“Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh: is there anything too hard for me?” ~Jeremiah 32:27
The are so many verses in the Bible that inform us that all we have to do is ask for help and the Lord will deliver us! There is no problem, conflict, or unknown that we face that God does not already know about and is waiting to help us with. The problem isn’t His lack of help, it’s our lack of asking! As leaders we must learn what our stressors are and how to combat them. We can build habits and routines into our days and weeks that help us maintain balance and help us remember to to take our burden to God in prayer! We must focus on what we can do, and trust Him to handle those things we cannot change, fix, or do ourselves. We must follow the advice of Peter: “Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.” ~I Peter 5:7
When you find yourself overwhelmed, evaluate your current emotional state. What things could you change, fix, organize, delete, throw away, adjust, or stop so you can get back on track? We all have ticks in our lives that can make or break us, have you figured out what yours is? Mine is an on-going battle of dealing with being rather OCD. (I’m not fully obsessive, but it greatly affects my mental and emotional state.) I have learned that if my house, truck, or office get unorganized I tend to get frazzled and stressed out at the drop of a hat. I cannot focus at work if my house or truck are a mess. But I’m so tired at the end of the day that I have no energy to do dishes, fold laundry, fix things, or clean out the truck. I started getting up 10 minutes earlier in the morning and now use that time to tackle one thing each morning. Now I get to come home to a cleaner house and am more likely to put things away than drop them. I started cleaning my truck out fully on trash days. I have to roll the trash can right past the truck to get it on the street, so I stop and clean out the pile of empty water bottles and Redbull cans that are certain to be in my back floorboard. It’s amazing the small details that can help your brain focus, or put you in a state of disarray.
Sometimes I think we feel that we cannot slow down to handle such small things and other items on our agenda are so much more important. But I would contend that leading from a place of peace, joy, inner strength and calm because we are taking those moments to seek God’s face in prayer, to tidy up the areas that we know affect us, is essential. We cannot be effective leaders if we are operating from a stressed out, overwhelmed state of mind and emotion. Thankfully, we have the ability to seek help from the Lord, who understands what we are going through. Hebrews reminds us that He was tempted too when He walked the earth, that He understands and is willing and wanting to help us!
“For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” ~Hebrews 4:15-16
We aren’t just told that we can ask for help, but that we can do so boldly! Here are some of my favorite verses to help me when I feel myself getting overwhelmed and I need to make some changes and reset some habits. I write these verses on pretty paper and post them on my computer, in my office, sometimes in my truck to help me remember I am not alone. For those moments when I am hiding from tasks, avoiding projects, terrified of succeeding because I’m afraid of the unknown, living so fast I ‘don’t have time’ all the while I am overwhelmed because of my insecurities and a lack of taking them to God. We can choose to embrace what the Psalmist said: “What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.” Psalm 56:3
One more story for application sake… a little while ago I was reading through Jeremiah in my morning Bible reading and devotions time and I grasped a story that I have never noticed before. Many people know Jeremiah as the weeping prophet, the one prophet kept in a dungeon for years. What I noticed was why he was in the dungeon in the first place. The reason will make you raise your eyebrows in disbelief at the ludicrousness.
“Then Zedekiah the king commanded that they should commit Jeremiah into the court of the prison, and that they should give him daily a piece of bread out of the bakers’ street, until all the bread in the city were spent. Thus Jeremiah remained in the court of the prison.
Then Shephatiah the son of Mattan, and Gedaliah the son of Pashur, and Jucal the son of Shelemiah, and Pashur the son of Malchiah, heard the words that Jeremiah had spoken unto all the people, saying,
Thus saith the LORD, He that remaineth in this city shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence: but he that goeth forth to the Chaldeans shall live; for he shall have his life for a prey, and shall live.
Thus saith the LORD, This city shall surely be given into the hand of the king of Babylon’s army, which shall take it.
Therefore the princes said unto the king, We beseech thee, let this man be put to death: for thus he weakeneth the hands of the men of war that remain in this city, and the hands of all the people, in speaking such words unto them: for this man seeketh not the welfare of this people, but the hurt.
Then Zedekiah the king said, Behold, he is in your hand: for the king is not he that can do any thing against you.
Then took they Jeremiah, and cast him into the dungeon of Malchiah the son of Hammelech, that was in the court of the prison: and they let down Jeremiah with cords. And in the dungeon there was no water, but mire: so Jeremiah sunk in the mire.” ~Jeremiah 38:1-6
Jeremiah was already in prison because the king didn’t like what the Lord told him to say. But he was being kept in the court of the prison. The princes of the land heard Jeremiah speak what the Lord told him to say after already being put in prison, and hated what he said so much that they pressured the king to kill Jeremiah. While the king didn’t allow the princes to kill Jeremiah, his weak leadership led to a fate much more horrible. The king tells the princes he simply can’t handle dealing with them anymore and to do what they wanted to Jeremiah. That decision sounds just like a leader who is overwhelmed! As a result of the king giving in to the princes, Jeremiah was cast into the dungeon where he literally lived in a mud pit for long enough that when he was finally taken out they had to put rotten rags under his armpits to raise him out with ropes. This wasn’t a dungeon like we see in fairytales where the prince rescues the princes from an evil step-parent. This dungeon was a mud-filled hole in the ground with no water, no food, no way to walk in and out. Imagine if the king had not been leading in an overwhelmed emotional state. Imagine if he had actually prayed about his decision before giving in to the demands of the princes. Jeremiah would have still been in prison, but he would never have been thrown in the dungeon.
This story shook me up a bit. I hadn’t ever made the connection between Jeremiah being put in the dungeon and the weak leadership of the king. We have no way of knowing what might happen that could have been avoided when we allow ourselves to get to the point of being overwhelmed. But we have a resource to keep us from getting there and to help us get back from there when we do: prayer! Never forget: a stress problem is a prayer problem. It’s just that simple.
