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Hi Kay,


It seems to me that this week has been a time of hitting the wall for a lot of people. How about you?

Hitting the wall is when all the tired catches up with you.

Tired of trying to be teacher and classroom monitor. Tired of trying to figure out food every single day. Even patronizing your favorite restaurant takes more planning and strategizing now. Used to be we could just show up.

Tired of everything changing every single week as far as what we have to do and how we go about what used to be the ordinary tasks of life.

And tired of everything being the same.

I've often told my counseling clients that when you feel overwhelmed the strategy is to break things down into small, concrete steps. In my residency I had a completely overwhelmed family whose loved one was being moved from the Emergency Department to ICU. So I broke down the steps and talked them through it.

We're going to walk down this hall and get on this elevator, We're not even going to think about what we do when we're on the elevator. All I want you to think about is walking down this hall. And when we were on the  elevator I continued. We're just going to ride the elevator to the 4th floor. That's all you need to think about right now.

When we feel overwhelmed, we cannot process a lot. So break it down into however small of a increment that you need. And focus on a concrete task: putting a load of laundry in the washer, taking a walk, taking a shower, answering an email. When you're done with that, then you move onto the next thing.

As you're doing some of those things, you may want to listen to a podcast. May I humbly suggest my own? The Community of Holy Stragglers is up and running, and this week I take a look at shame. Does shaming ourselves really motivate us to change? Is that the way that God works? You can find here.

If you're looking for something to read that comes in small bites, I have several suggestions. Kitchen Table Wisdom by Naomi Remen was a landmark book for me. She shares stories from her life (that includes living with Crohn's disease) and her work with cancer patients. Her reflections on life, suffering, healing and meaning may be just what you need right now.

In a totally different vein, I'm thoroughly enjoying Diana Butler Bass' A People's History of Christianity. She breaks down each era in the church's life, putting the changes and developments within a historical-cultural context. That may sound dry, but this book is far from it. I'm a little over halfway through, and it's helped me think about church and faith in this time. Her sections are short, so for me it's been a great morning routine book. I can read just a few pages each day.

This morning I read what she said about the tendency of some preachers to hold up Adam and Eve as the model for Christian marriage:

Besides the obvious fact that they were not Christians, they ran around naked, could not have actually married since no marital laws existed, lied to and deceived one another, and demonstrated such fine parenting skills that one of their sons murdered the other.

Like I said, it's not dry and boring.

Finally, I also humbly offer my latest book, Monday Morning Manna: The grace of everyday life. I share stories of my pets and my life and look for where God's story might be a part of it all.

Each week I'm recording the Bible study that I'd normally be teaching in my Sunday school class. If you'd like to join in, you don't have to get dressed in your Sunday best. You can find it in my Heart Callings Facebook group.

Creating these videos have been surpassingly fun for me, and they are leading me to develop a whole new work (not televangelist, in care you're wondering.) But more about that later.

For now, take each step as you can. It gets us through the day and God willing, may even lead us to a new day.

Peace,

Peggy

PS Some folks are deeply struggling in these days. If that's you, please feel free to reach out to me at peggy@peggyhaymes.com.





     



Peggy Haymes, 3504 Vest Mill Road, Ste 23, Winston-Salem, NC 27103, United States


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