When You Feel Overwhelmed

My guest speaker for this month is my friend and one of my favorite authors of encouragement – Micah Maddox.  Don’t be overwhelmed, but be encouraged, loved ones.

We live in a world where we are challenged to simplify, organize, and compartmentalize our lives into cute planners with holiday stickers and journals for every occasion. I’m the first to confess I love an adorable planner with a fun pink pen and a place to keep my list of “have to’s” and “want to’s”.  It gives me a sense of calm.

Lately I’ve had little time to plan, prepare, or organize anything. My life has been what most would call overwhelming. I don’t share this for you to feel sorry for me or amazed at all I seem to juggle. I share this overwhelming season of life with you because it’s been one of the most amazing seasons I have ever experienced.

When we first got the call, my heart was ready, but my home was not. Within moments we prepared our home for the arrival of a child we knew nothing about. Sippy cups, pull ups, blankets, and a new teddy bear took their spot on my shopping list.

Suddenly a life written in a planner with a pink pen became a life not able to be put into words. The plans for the week changed from rigid schedules, activities, , and errands, to  meeting the needs of the people under my roof. Feeding, bathing, and loving were the essentials, and that’s about all we did for the first week.

We slowed down to embrace the overwhelming responsibility of another child.

The middle of the night crying that came with this little one, and the trauma that exposed itself through meltdowns, and crocodile tears became the new normal. While reality overwhelmed us emotionally and physically, God supernaturally overwhelmed us with calmness that can only be attributed to Him.

There’s no explanation for the calm God continues to give us as we hold a child that desperately desires our love one moment and violently fights our affection the next. Simply put, it’s overwhelming.

I don’t know what overwhelming experience you are enduring right now, but I pray God gives you His power as you trust Him through it.

His will might not always fit nicely in a cute planner, and it might not look pretty written in pink ink. But I promise, God’s plan will always bring you closer to Him. Isn’t that what we all want? To be closer to God? To feel Him near? To know He indeed is with us through it all?  Too many times we pass up God’s way because it looks too hard, too complicated, too overwhelming.

But I’m learning overwhelm is a good thing as long as it’s a God thing.

All the other stuff in life can wait, but God’s way is urgent.  It’s tending to the needs God places before us right now. Face it!  Embrace it.  Blessings to you, Micah

Micah Maddox is  a women’s conference speaker, Bible teacher, writer, blogger, and author of Anchored In: Experience a Power-Full Life in a Problem-Filled World. I am passionate about helping women find purpose, peace, and calm in our chaotic world.  micah@micahmaddox.com

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