For Everything There is a Season
Bev Dracos
For everything there is a season, a time for every matter under heaven.
Ecclesiastes 3:1
School is starting. It’s time for the fall kick-off of church studies and programs. It’s a new season of kids’ activities. It is also a new season of requests for your time, your talents, your energy, and your commitment. At every stage of mom life we can find ourselves feeling pressured to do MORE.
We want to serve, we want to give, we want to say “YES” to so many requests. It can be daunting and overwhelming.
Many years ago, I replaced New Year’s Resolutions with a guiding word from scripture. Many of my business acquaintances were selecting three words of their own choosing to focus on throughout the year. While this was a good exercise, I decided I would fast, pray, study my Bible, and ask the Lord to give me a guiding word for the year. Surely that would be more powerful than any word of my choosing.
Once I have my word, I do a word study and look for every instance of the word in scripture. I keep the word at the forefront of my mind for an entire year and journal how that word shows up in my life.
The very first year I did this I was living a life of overwhelm. I was trying to do many things (not doing any of them very well) and yet, I continued to take on more. I was feeling inadequate, disappointed in myself and like a juggler at the circus I had too many balls in the air at one time. I knew that sooner or later the balls would come crashing down. When I turned to the Lord in prayer, the word that jumped off the pages of my Bible was wholeheartedly.
Ephesians 6:7 NIV – Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord.
As I continued studying this word, I kept seeing references to committing with our whole heart. Yes, we are to seek and follow the Lord with our whole heart.
2 Chronicles 19:9 NIV– He gave them these orders: You must serve faithfully and wholeheartedly in the fear of the Lord.
2 Chronicles 15:15 NIV– All Judah rejoiced about the oath because they had sworn it wholeheartedly. They sought God eagerly, and he was found by them. So the Lord gave them rest on every side.
Could this word hold the key to eliminating overwhelm?
The more I thought about the word “wholeheartedly” the more I began to look at my commitments and ask myself if my “Yes” was wholehearted. I began to prioritize the requests that I could truly commit to. I began to think intentionally about my Yes being Yes and my No being No. I learned that I did not have to present reasons or excuses for saying No. The pressure to do more began to subside. The overwhelm began to dissipate.
Sometimes we need to stretch ourselves. Sometimes we are called to make a greater sacrifice. If we are called to do that and we are approaching it wholeheartedly, the Lord will be faithful to provide what we need.
We see women in different seasons of life and we wish we could do what they are doing. Young women see older women with time to commit hours upon hours to prayer and oh, how they long to do that.
Older women see young women with energy, physical strength, and stamina to pursue demanding tasks and yes, they long to serve in that way.
Some want desperately to go out into the community and make a difference for the kingdom, but they have family obligations that currently make that impossible.
Some seem to be able to do it all.
Some feel like they have been placed on the shelf.
When we decided to bring my elderly parents to live with us, to help them “finish well”, it was a wholehearted commitment. Someone at church asked me why I had stepped away from doing ministry work. I said, “My ministry is at home right now.”
There truly is a time and a season for everything.
Let’s talk about it…
- Have you ever felt overwhelmed? If so, how did you handle it?
- Are you content in your season of life?
- When you think of doing something wholeheartedly… what comes to mind?
