Worry

July 26, 2018 by Tricia Goyer Leave a Comment

What kind of worrier are you? | Barb Roose

Did you know there are different kinds of worries? Stay tuned and learn what kind of worrier are you?

Have you ever said, “Oh, I’m just a worrier.”? For many years of my life, “Worrier” was my middle name. In fact, the beginning of most of my thoughts started with the same two-word phrase, “What if…?” Those thoughts usually ended with me dissolving into a pile of defeated tears. During one season of my life that I refer to as the “Dark Years,” our family was struggling on all levels of life due to a variety of unexpected hardships. Each day, my list of what-if worries grew like adding cars on the back of an already long train.

Did you know that the word worry actually means to strangle or torture? Worry begins when we ask what-if questions about uncertain situations we can’t control. Without knowing how things will turn out, we tend to answer those what-if questions with the worst-case scenario endings.

For example, if your boss asks you to drop by her office before you leave for the day, you might begin wondering, What if she doesn’t like the report I’ve done? or What if I lose my job? Without a way to know the answer, your mind starts running a mental movie starring you. As the scenes unfold, you see yourself unemployed, unhappy, hungry, and homeless on the street. By the time your mental movie ends, your heartbeat is racing, you’ve got a queasy stomach and your entire afternoon is ruined.

Research tells us that 85% of what we worry about won’t actually happen, but that doesn’t stop us from worrying.

For over a decade, I worked in ministry, business, and as a life coach helping women like myself deal with anxiety and worry from God’s perspective. In my book, Winning the Worry Battle, I identify four different types of worriers and how they act out worry in their lives:

A. Silent Sufferer: Stuffs her worries deep inside and doesn’t talk about them.
B. Mother Hen: Often nags others to try to reduce stress and anxiety.
C. Busy Body: Constant activity because unfinished tasks or projects create stress and worry.
D. Control Freak: Maneuvers or manipulates others in order to reduce inner anxiety.

Which one can you relate to? During my kids’ younger years, I was a control freak because I worried non-stop about my self-image, my kids, and my husband. I worried that my kids’ teachers would think that I was a bad mom, so I controlled what my kids packed for lunch. I was so afraid that my kids would get kidnapped that I wouldn’t let them ride their bikes around the block.

I thought that if I could control everything, then I would feel less anxious. But that wasn’t true! There was always something to be worried about, so I tried to control things until God allowed a few situations in my life I couldn’t control. That was God’s invitation to turn my fears and worries over to Him! That’s when I finally won my worry battle. I’ve since made heartfelt amends with my family because my worry deeply affected their lives.

No matter what kind of worrier you are, I think you already know this: Worrying doesn’t work. Like the old saying, worry is like a rocking chair, it gives you something to do, but it gets you nowhere.

Jesus pointed this out to us long ago. In Matthew 6, he was talking to a group of people on a hillside. I think Jesus knew there were all types of worriers standing and listening to him that day. In verse 27 (NLT), Jesus challenges us with the following words:

“Can all of your worries add a single moment to your life?”

My friend, make today the last day that you let fear or worry steal the best and precious moments of your life!

More about Winning the Worry Battle

For those who struggle with worry and anxiety, each day can feel as if they are fighting a losing battle. According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the U.S., affecting 40 million adults age 18 and older, or 18% of the population. Research also reveals that women are twice as likely to be affected by Panic Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder, and specific phobias. From personal experience, author and Bible teacher Barb Roose understands what it means to battle with worry. She has written her new book Winning the Worry Battle: Life Lessons from the Book of Joshua and a companion Bible study on Joshua, to share the wisdom she’s garnered over the years to help other women gain victory over their anxieties.

Combining inspiration, humor, and personal stories that resonate across all ages, Winning the Worry Battle, which is inspired by the Bible’s book of Joshua, offers encouragement and practical worry-fighting tools for handling those situations that cause us to struggle with worry, anxiety, fear, or even complete meltdown.

“If I had to define the intensity of my worry on a scale of 1-10, I’d choose 9 to describe my teen through early parenting years,” Roose confesses. “After I married and began a family, my worries surrounded my kids and career, but mostly my kids. My mind spun awful mental movies when my kids were growing up. I really struggled with thinking about worst-case scenarios, which led to a lot of helicopter parenting. As a Christian, I beat myself up for being a worrier. I felt like a bad Christian because ‘just pray about it’ didn’t seem to work for me.”

Roose shares how she learned that while prayer is important, it is only half of the solution. The other half of the equation is developing three God-empowered tools required to fight in faith: peace, courage, and strength. In Winning the Worry Battle Roose offers fresh, practical techniques—like the CALM Technique, God-morning/God-night, and Count to 12 memory device—to apply these God-empowered tools to overcome our daily struggles and the bigger battles we all face.

“Whether it is personal worries about loved ones and daily circumstances or broader concerns about what’s happening in the world, the data indicates that worry is a persistent issue that many combat on a day-to-day basis,” adds Roose. “Rather than offer well-meaning cliches, God has empowered us with tools that he promises will get us into position for victory as we put real feet to faith for winning the worry battle.”

For further exploration of the subject, Roose has also written Joshua: Winning the Worry Battle women’s Bible study. Releasing alongside the book are the participant workbook, leader guide, and DVD.

Purchase a copy of Winning the Worry Battle
Amazon | Barnes and Noble | CBD | BarbRoose.com

Barb Roose author of Winning the Worry Battle

Barb Roose is a popular speaker and author who is passionate about connecting women to one another and to God. Her goal is to equip women to win at life with Christ-empowered strength and dignity. Roose enjoys teaching and encouraging women at conferences and events across the country and abroad. Her latest book is Winning the Worry Battle: Life Lessons from the Book of Joshua along with the companion Bible study.

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March 28, 2017 by Tricia Goyer 23 Comments

Hope for the Mom Who Feels Unremarkable {+ a giveaway!}

I am the mother of eight children, something that feels very normal and unimpressive to me, but usually elicits a response of shock and awe in people I meet. I feel largely unremarkable. You, too?

In all these years of mothering, there have been joyful, wonderful, absolutely fun days, and there have been hopeless, depressing, despairing, and desperate days when I wanted to stay crouched beneath the covers and not have to face all of those little and not-so-little people who expected me to at least feed them.

What hope is there for us when we see only the messes, only the discipline issues, only the strained marriage and the family problems and the failing business? We need hope, don’t we?

What if I told you that the God who created you, created the universe, created every living thing, loves you, cares deeply for you, and has a perfect plan to bring all of our hopelessness to an end because He perfectly provides, perfectly protects, and perfectly carries out everything He set out to accomplish?

In the summer of 2008, I found our 7-week-old in a coma. He was barely breathing, his skin was blue, and his eyes were rolled back into his head. An ambulance rushed him to the nearest ER, but it wasn’t until he arrived at a children’s hospital late that night that a diagnosis was made. We were told to sleep with our cell phones because he probably wouldn’t make it through the night.

He had a deadly enterovirus, and it sent his body into liver failure, kidney failure, damaged his heart, and permanently damaged his brain.

As I stood over my tiny dying boy there in that ICU, I suddenly heard the sounds of a woman wailing outside our little Joe’s room. She had lost her daughter to cancer, and she was hopelessly wailing outside our baby’s room.

In that moment, I knew. I was so busy placing our hope for our children in everything but God. Our homeschooling, our church, our theology, our choices. These were the things I was hoping were going to keep our children from harm and cause them to grow up following Christ and living a life without major issues.

I knew, too, that that woman felt hopeless, and I was so busy camping on things that were not the gospel, when what our dying world — what we — need, is the gospel.

The gospel is this, in the words of author and pastor Tim Keller, “…we are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared to believe, and at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.

This is the only kind of relationship that will really transform us. Love without truth is sentimentality; it supports and affirms us but keeps us in denial about our flaws. Truth without love is harshness; it gives us information but in such a way that we cannot really hear it. God’s saving love in Christ, however, is marked by both radical truthfulness about who we are and yet also radical, unconditional commitment to us. The merciful commitment strengthens us to see the truth about ourselves and repent. The conviction and repentance moves us to cling to and rest in God’s mercy and grace.”

Love without truth is sentimentality

We can’t ever forget the gospel. In the midst of the yelling, brain-damaged 8-year-old, the dinner boiled over and pouring down the cabinets, the broken clothes dryer, the car that leaves us stranded on the side of the freeway (again), we must never, never, never lose sight of the fact that we are cared for by the God who gives us the only hope we can ever rely upon.

He doesn’t look at you and see stressed-out mom. He doesn’t look at you and see failed marriage. He doesn’t look at you and see a girl who’s really bad at math. He doesn’t look at you and see a failure who once again couldn’t get dinner on the table in time.

He sees Jesus. He defines you by Jesus.

Jesus. Jesus, who lived a perfect life. I have not lived a perfect life, and there are nine people who live in my house who will testify that I have not lived a perfect hour. But my Jesus — He lived a perfect life, and when God looks at me, He sees Jesus.

And when He looks at you — cowering, defeated, lonely, out of control, controlling, mouthy, sinful, needy — He sees Jesus.

It will always serve us well to remember Whose we are and what He’s done for us. Instead of us, He has placed Jesus over, around, in, and under, to cover and to answer and to be everything we cannot and are not.

That’s the good news. That’s the gospel, and it is our hope.

It will always serve us well to remember Whose we are. Guest post with @kendraefletcher on @TriciaGoyer #giveaway

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More about Lost and Found

The “right” homeschooling philosophy. The “right” brand of theology. The “right” meal-planning, home-managing, keep-it-all-together parenting.

Kendra Fletcher, homeschooling mom of eight, had it all “right,” until it all fell apart. In the course of eighteen months, Kendra found her baby in a coma, ran over her five-year-old, and nearly lost her eight-year-old to a septic ruptured appendix. Lost and Found is the story of how God used those events to transform her family’s self-righteous religion into freedom in Christ.

Fletcher’s debut book is the gripping true story of how God used suffering to save her family from empty religion. As wave after wave of crisis hit, the Fletchers discovered that getting religion “right” wasn’t a good substitute for a living relationship with a loving God. Through their suffering, they learned about misplaced identities and false hope, and they threw themselves wholly into the arms of Jesus—where they found the grace they needed.

Fletcher, a well-known writer and conference speaker in Christian homeschooling circles, addresses the quiet legalism that so easily infiltrates Christian communities and exposes the dangers of focusing our hopes on the “right” ways of worship, work, and family life. More than a memoir, Lost and Found invites all of us to give up the things that hold us in bondage and find our value, worth, significance, hope, and identity in Christ alone.

Purchase a copy here: Paperback | Kindle

Kendra Fletcher is the mother of 8, speaker for groups and conferences around the country, author of several books, and podcaster on HomeschoolingIRL. Her newest book, Lost and Found: Losing Religion,Finding Grace, is published by New Growth Press.

Where she writes:
www.kendrafletcher.com
www.homeschoolingIRL.com

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May 14, 2016 by Tricia Goyer 1 Comment

Do Not Worry | Matthew 6:34

Saturday Scripture

Matthew 6:34

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Prayer

Dear heavenly Father,
Thank you for the reminder of your providence in Matthew 6. I am ashamed at how quick I am to stress and worry about even the smallest of things. Forgive me for my lack of faith and trust. Daily may I surrender my fears to you. Give me peace that only you can provide and help me to trust your plan. Thank you for your promise to always be with me — I have no reason to worry about my future with you on my side!

Do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about itself. Matthew 6:34

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November 7, 2014 by Tricia Goyer

6 Quotes to Bring You Peace

I’m sharing these 6 quotes to bring you peace as well as a free printable! Click on the graphic below to get download the printable.

6 Quotes to Bring You Peace

When All You Want to Do is Escape from Life

Yesterday, I was a bit overwhelmed (and that might be the understatement of a lifetime!).

I work from home as a writer, and I have a book deadline that is looming. My husband is in Australia for work, and my young kid’s ages 7, 4, and 4 are always extra needy when John’s gone. (Insert LOTS of testing mom.)

Did I mention I’m also homeschooling? And I won’t dwell too long on my 20-year-old son who lives at home and still enjoys mom time, or my 84-year-old grandmother who lives with our family, or our puppy who’s still in the chewing phase and decided to put a nice hole in the living room carpet! (I wish I were joking!)

When I sat down with my Bible, devotional book, and journal yesterday morning I was empty. If anyone wanted to escape from “life” at that moment, it was me. But as I began to dwell on God’s truths, everything began to change. I was reminded that Jesus never intended for me to carry my burdens alone.

Instead, this is what He had to say:

6 Quotes to Bring You Peace:

1. Come to me.

Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” —Matthew 11:28 NIV

2. Cast ALL your anxiety.

Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. —1 Peter 5:7 NIV

3. Do not worry.

Then Jesus said to his disciples: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear.” —Luke 12:22 NIV

4. Do not be afraid.

Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the LORD will personally go ahead of you. He will be with you; he will neither fail you nor abandon you. —Deuteronomy 31:8

5. Do not be anxious about anything.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. —Philippians 4:6

I’m not sure when I got the idea that I had to handle everything myself. I’m pretty certain God didn’t set up “the perfect storm” and then sit back to watch, thinking, “Well, let’s see how she gets out of this one.”

Instead, God allows the hard stuff of life to happen in order for us to discover Him and lean into Him in the middle of our overwhelmed state.

This poem (written many years ago!) explains it perfectly.

Child of My love, lean hard,

And let Me feel the pressure of thy care;

I know thy burden, child, I shaped it;

Poised it in My own hand, made no proportion

in its weight to thine unaided strength;

For even as I laid it on, I said

I shall be near, and while he leans on Me,

This burden shall be Mine, not his;

So shall I keep My child within the circling

arms of My own love.

Here lay it down, nor fear to impose it on a

shoulder which upholds the government of

worlds.

Yet closer come; thou art not near enough;

I would embrace thy care so I might feel

My child reposing on My breast.

Thou lovest Me? I know it. Doubt not then;

But, loving Me, Lean Hard.

—May Prentiss Smith “Streams in the Desert”, September 12 Devotion

Today, print up this free printable and dwell on these Scriptures. Cast your cares on Him. Lean hard, and wait for peace to come!

As Robert J. Morgan writes in his devotional book All to Jesus:

“No problem is too small for His notice, none too large for His power. He’s concerned about each and every problem I have or would ever have, public or personal, large or little. He can handle them, and I should give them all to Him in total trust.”

Friend, will you give all your cares to Jesus in total trust? He’s waiting for that very thing. Lean in!

For you today,

Tricia Goyer

Journal Through the Bible in 2020

Have you ever wanted to read through the Bible but found yourself giving up? Or even worse, you read the chapters and at the end question how they apply to your life. Tricia Goyer understands. For years she felt frustrated that she couldn’t stick to her commitment to reading God’s Word all the way through. Things changed when she found a doable plan and wrote out a daily prayer. Tricia’s heart changed. Her life did, too.

God can bring real transformation into your heart and life when you daily commit to reading your Bible and praying through God’s Word. Praying through the Bible in One Year offers a guided reading plan and a daily prayer starter to help you make God’s Word applicable to your life. Discover the inspiration for real-life transformation.

Purchase a copy of Praying Through the Bible in One Year HERE.

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August 9, 2013 by Tricia Goyer 3 Comments

How to Be Courageous {in Life’s Challenges}

Having courage sounds wonderful until you really need it! Do you wonder how to have courage? Especially when you are hit with life’s challenges, you might wonder how you can be courageous. Read on…

Recently on my Facebook page, I asked this question: “What does it mean to be courageous?” I love what my friend Cheryl had to say about how to have courage:

My husband has a coffee cup with a quote that reads, “Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway,” — John Wayne.

I say don’t trust in horses, chariots, or things of the natural sort, but rather in the Creator of all things. He possesses hindsight and foresight. He breathes courage into us and will bring strength smack-dab in the middle of our weaknesses.

Even if fear breathes its disgusting breath down the nape of a neck and whispers lies into ears, He remains our Comforter and our Encourager. —Cheryl

I love Cheryl’s words.

Courage isn’t something we really think about until we need to. Typically when we face a life challenge or a situation out of our comfort zone we want everything fixed . . . fast. We want relief from our troubles at no cost to ourselves. We pray for peace and safety.

Instead, it’s important to see fear and worries as opportunities to hitch up with God—a need to be courageous points us to a need for God! We need to learn how to have courage by leaning on the Strong Rock.

Fear and worries are opportunities to hitch up with God! http://us148.siteground.us/~triciag6/how-to-have-courage/

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How to have Courage

Saddle up and turn to God. If there were never any challenges, you wouldn’t need God as much, would you? And you wouldn’t discover how to be courageous. Turn to Him.
See fear as an opportunity. When we are scared we’re more willing to pray and ask God to take us out of the situation. Use your challenges and fears as an opportunity for growth and trust.
Search your heart. We pray for a straight and easy path. We want Jesus to fix our situations, but we often don’t want Him to deal with our own hearts—our sins and fears—that we haven’t surrendered to Him. Search your heart and ask, “What is causing me not to trust You completely, Jesus?”
Listen to God’s voice. Hear his whispers of peace. God’s Word says, “But I will reveal my name to my people, and they will come to know its power. Then at last they will recognize that I am the one who speaks to them” Isaiah 53:6.
Know God is faithful. Never once have you had to walk alone. God has always been there, and He’ll always be there still. Listen to this song and remember that.