Genesis 1:1-5. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.  Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.  And God said, “Let there be light,”  and there was light.  God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.  God called the light “day” and the darkness he called “night.”  And there was evening, and there was morning ~ the first day.

Do you really think God needed 7 days to create everything on the earth?  He could easily have spoken it all into existence immediately.  He didn’t really need 7 days, but He took one day at a time!

Do you feel buried in all that you are needing or trying to accomplish?  I have those days where I take one look at all I need to do in my office and then think about what needs to be done in the house and I don’t even know where to begin and unfortunately I have had days where I didn’t!  Yup!  I have had a few days where I have walked in and saw all of the homeschool papers that needed to be graded, and the bills that needed to be paid, and books needing to be read, and notes for the book I am working on and I have turned around and walked out to find something less complicated to deal with!  Somehow that doesn’t solve the stack of things to do!  I bought a book one day from Simple Truths called “Eat That Frog”, it is a book about how to change a procrastinating mindset.  The idea is that if you have to eat a bunch of frogs (frogs are your overwhelming tasks for the day) to eat the ugliest or biggest one first.  Don’t look at all the frogs, get the worst one over with and then the rest won’t seem so bad.  

The thing to do is to follow God’s example: don’t do it all in one day!  Take a day and organize what you need to get done and make a list and write out a schedule for getting it done.  Make your schedule reasonable, don’t overwhelm yourself by trying to cram it all into just a couple of days if it is going to take more than that, it takes more than that!  Get the most important and biggest tasks out of the way first!  Ask God to help you prioritize, He loves being asked for help!  Set your mind that you can do this and once you clear all of the craziness you will be able to function on a better, less stressful level.  Women these days seem riddled with anxiety and sometimes it is just that you have taken on too much or you have procrastinated so long on some things that you are now buried under it all.  God doesn’t want you to feel buried, but Satan does.  Satan will try to get you to put off getting started and organized to keep you from all that God has for you!  

Summer is almost here and God wants you to be able to have some family time and time for you to be able to refresh yourself.  Mark 6:31, ‘And He said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest awhile.”  For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.’   Yeah, have you had those days?  I can remember everyone asking me how I could possibly be so thin after having 3 children!  Seriously?  I never got to eat!  I would clean and feed and sort out little issues (they were all born 2 1/2 years apart) and wash clothes and after they would eat lunch or breakfast I would attempt to make myself something only for one of them to decide they were hungry and want it so I would give it to them and make myself a glass of Protein.  That tends to be the life of a young mom and I loved it, but there were times I would lock myself in the bathroom for a couple of minutes just to pull it together. That was also why they had a bedtime of 7:30 when they were really little, so I had some downtime in the evening!  We all need some time to refresh ourselves and you have to be intentional about it because if you are waiting for someone else to figure it out for you, you will be in trouble and exhausted!

So, I would like to encourage you to take one day at a time, and if you need to just take a day to organize all that you need or want to accomplish, start there.  Make a list so you can have the joy of accomplishment every time you cross one-off.  Reward yourself with some quiet time!  Take time to rest, even if it means putting the kids to bed early or getting a sitter for a few hours.  Make room for life!  As Will Rogers once said, “Even if you are on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” The opposite is true as well, You cannot go at a breakneck speed day in and day out without burnout!  God loves you and wants to help you become all you can be, but He wants you to do it one day at a time and there needs to be some balance!

Quote: “Life Begins when you do.” ~ Hugh Downs

Title quote by Robert Orben