Marissa Henley

Encouraging weary women to hope in Christ alone

More on "Calm My Anxious Heart"

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I’ve been reading more of Linda Dillow’s Calm My Anxious Heart and really liked her chapters on being content with my role and with my relationships. It is so easy to always be looking ahead to a point in time when I think my life will be easier or better–when all my kids are dressing themselves and taking care of their own potty-related needs, when Noel cuts back on his hours, when I start to really love working out and hate eating sweets (yeah, right!). Before I was married, I wanted to be married. When I didn’t have kids, I wanted a baby. And now that I have preschoolers, I want them to go to school (and on my more insane days, I want another baby). I have a tendency to think that surely having a 2-year-old and 4-year-old is about as tough as it gets, and when they get a little older, then I will be able to pull myself together and be the kind of wife, mom, friend and Christian I want to be.

I started to realize the truth of my need to be content with what my role is right now when I had a single girlfriend over for lunch a few weeks ago. I was feeling jealous of her life–her nice clothes and car (the kind that doesn’t seat 8), her important job that brings her into contact with actual adults every single day, all the freedom that she has to do what she wants when she wants. It was the week before Will’s birthday party, and on my kitchen counter was a to-do list full of things, most of which I was dreading. Mop floors, clean bathrooms, dust living room, make treat bags, bake and decorate cake, etc. My friend looked at my to-do list and exclaimed, “I wish I had this to-do list!” I was shocked, but I shouldn’t be. It is so easy to take what we have for granted, to get weighed down by the mundane tasks — to lose sight of what a privilege it is to clean up after these little treasures God has given me and plan their birthday parties and teach them about Jesus.

In a discussion of maturity, Dillow writes: “We grow up when we see our life and our role from God’s perspective . . . when each morning we ask, ‘God, how can I glorify you today in my given role?'” She writes about Christ as an example. His role was to humble Himself, serve others, and give His life as a ransom for many. (See Mark 10:45 and Philippians 2:5-8) My role is to glorify God by serving my husband, my children, and others around me. My role is to mop floors, fix peanut butter sandwiches, change diapers and read books. My role is to train, discipline and teach my sons to love God and each other. My role is to pray for my children and about the decisions we make that impact their lives. I want to be a real grown-up and glorify God in the role He has given me today rather than waiting for Him to give me a more glamorous job.

In Dillow’s chapter on contentment in relationships, she focuses quite a bit on forgiveness. This is a fairly new topic for me, one that I’ve been thinking about more in the last year and realizing that it is something that I struggle with. (See previous post on forgiveness.) This is also a topic that came up in last week’s BSF lesson. I know God is trying to get my attention when He’s teaching me the same thing through two different avenues!

My BSF lesson and part of Dillow’s chapter on relationships examined Matthew 18:21-35, the parable of the unforgiving servant. In this parable, the king forgives his servant’s massive debt (roughly $15 million in today’s terms) and then the servant goes out and refuses to forgive another’s minuscule debt against him. Likewise, in Christ, we have been forgiven for a debt that we could never pay: the penalty for our sin. If we fail to see our need for the Cross, we will view other’s sin against us as great and difficult to forgive. If we have a proper view of our sin and how much we have been forgiven, it will be a natural reaction to forgive the much smaller offenses that others commit against us.

Studying this passage made me realize that if I’m keeping a mental list of the ways my husband has let me down or harboring resentment toward someone who has offended me, it should be a red flag for me that I need to turn my attention back to the seriousness of my own sin against God and grace I have been shown by His forgiveness. When those thoughts of “I’ve been wronged” start to trickle in, I need to consciously turn my thoughts to the Cross. This could really transform some of my relationships where I continue to hold on to past hurts and disappointments.

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“Calm My Anxious Heart” part 2

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I have been married for almost ten years to my high school sweetheart, a man who loves Christ and seeks to walk with Him daily. He treats me fabulously, praises me for completing mundane tasks like laundry, and gives me sympathy after a tough day with the kids. I have two sons, Christopher and Will, who are healthy, adorable, sweethearts. They are eager to please, often play well together, and say hilarious things all the time. I have the privilege of staying home with them every day. I love teaching them about Jesus and hearing Christopher’s insightful questions about God. I have a gorgeous house that has more space than we need. I have a huge Jacuzzi tub and a fabulous kitchen with cabinets I can’t even fill. My husband has a job that he loves, and his income provides enough money to pay our bills.

On the other hand, I have been married for almost ten years, which means most of the romance vanished a long time ago. I wish my husband would get home from work earlier, help more with the housework and lavish me with romantic gifts. I have squeezed two 9+ pound babies from my body after enduring vomit-filled pregnancies. Now that they are almost 2- and 4-year-olds, the boys are constantly moving, frequently whining, and often hitting, screaming, and grabbing the other’s toys. My house is too big, and I can never get it all clean at one time. I have nothing on my walls because I can’t afford anything nice right now. The list of things I want for the house and can’t afford is extensive. By the time I finish what I need to do in the evenings, I’d like to take a bath in my Jacuzzi tub but that just means having to clean it later, and I can’t reach all the way around it without doing some serious yoga-like moves.

Those two paragraphs, two very different ways of looking at my life, are an adaptation of how Linda Dillow begins the second chapter of Calm My Anxious Heart, “Content with Circumstances.” Dillow’s is a much more interesting account of the years she spent living in Hong Kong. It struck me as I read the first half and then the second–two very different ways of looking at the very same circumstances. I was encouraged to do the same and wrote a more detailed description than I’ve included here. As I feel discontentment creeping in, it is because I’m choosing to focus on the negative description of my circumstances, and I remind myself to switch my thinking to the positive. I highly recommend writing out these descriptions of your own life, or at least jotting down some bullet points to come back to when you’re feeling discontented.

Dillow draws on Philippians 4:6-9 in this chapter on contentment with circumstances. She describes verse 6 as “our part”: to choose to pray with thanksgiving rather than give in to anxiety. The result will be “God’s part” (verse 7): He will guard our hearts and minds with His peace.

Philippians 4:8-9 exhorts us to think about that which is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent and praiseworthy. This means focusing on the first paragraph of my life’s description, not the second; mediating on the greatness of God’s love for me rather than the things I think I’m lacking. Dillow writes: “We become what we think. Our thought life–not our circumstances–determines whether we are content” (p. 32). She references Proverbs 23:7 (KJV) and 2 Corinthians 10:5 to prove this point. I love the mental picture in 2 Corinthians about taking every thought captive and making it obedient to Christ. Many of my circumstances are out of my control, but by the power of the Holy Spirit, I can choose to respond with contentment rather than selfish grumbling. I often think that when my circumstances change, I will be more content. But the truth is, when I take control of my thought life and make it obedient to Christ, peace and contentment will follow.

Today, God gave me the opportunity to apply these truths, along with lessons from this week’s passage for BSF. We were studying the feeding of the 4,000 in Matthew 15:32-38. One of the lessons I learned from this passage is that God will supply every one of our needs, even if it requires a miracle–He can and will do it! Conversely, if I don’t have something, it must mean that God knows I don’t need it. This week, the one thing I thought I needed was for both of my kids to make it to preschool/mother’s day out so I could have a day to myself and do several things I need to do without the kids. This afternoon, Will started running a temperature of 102, replacing my dream of drinking Starbucks and test driving minivans with the reality of taking a sick, cranky 2-year-old to the pediatrician. I can’t say I passed this test with flying colors–I complained about it this afternoon to anyone who would listen (breaking the rules of my previous post). But I acknowledged to Noel that God must have decided that I didn’t need that day to myself, even if I thought I did. I will choose to be thankful for the time I will get to spend with Will tomorrow and the privilege of being his mom. I will be thankful that we can afford to go to the pediatrician (and that my friend Lynette can afford an ear monitor that let me know I should take him). And I will continue to pray that both kids will be healthy so they can go to school next week. 🙂

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“Calm My Anxious Heart” by Linda Dillow

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I highly recommend this book I’ve been reading lately–thanks to my friend Janet for recommending it to me! I’ve read the first half so far, and she has been talking about contentment. This is a constant struggle for me (see a post I wrote 7 months ago on the subject, for example). There have been several poignant words of wisdom in this book that have made me even more aware of how pervasive discontentment is in my life. She shares a “prescription for contentment” found in the journal of missionary to Africa:

“Never allow yourself to complain about anything–not even the weather. Never picture yourself in any other circumstances or someplace else. Never compare your lot with another’s. Never allow yourself to wish this or that had been otherwise. Never dwell on tomorrow–remember that [tomorrow] is God’s, not ours.” (p.13)

These words are extremely convicting and seem impossible to put into action. But keeping them in mind has brought me to repentence often for my envy of others and dissatisfaction with the day God has given me.

Dillow describes contentment as “accepting God’s sovereign control over all of life’s circumstances” (p. 18). She shares a quote from J.I. Packer that says, “Contentment is essentially a matter of accepting from God’s hand what He sends because we know that He is good and therefore it is good.” When I look at it this way, my discontentment is a matter of unbelief. I am refusing to believe the truth: God is sovereign and God is good, and therefore, if my kids are at home driving me insane instead of at mother’s day out, that is what my loving Heavenly Father has for me today. If I’m yelling at them and wishing they’d be quiet so I can go on with my pity party, I am not accepting what the Father has sent. I need to repent and joyfully accept that which He has given. God has decided that the other options (such as a day to myself) were not best–I need to put them out of my mind as well. (I’m describing myself last Thursday, in case you were wondering.)

More to come when I get a chance . . .

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Greed

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Tuesday night at the dinner table, as Noel prayed before the meal, he thanked God for all our material blessings. This isn’t a routine part of our pre-dinner prayer, so in my mind I started wondering if he had found out about a Christmas bonus or a raise or some exciting news like that. Later, as I drove home from BSF, I realized how disgusting and sinful my reaction was. I had been sitting in a beautiful home, filled with furniture, food, clothing, and toys, about to eat one of many meals that could be prepared from our fully-stocked pantry–we have more than we could possibly need. And instead of joining my husband in being grateful for all the ways God has blessed us, I was thinking, “Is there more??”

It gets worse. I thought back on the things that consumed my thoughts during the day. I had contemplated whether or not I would ever own designer jeans, when I might be able to have a set of Lenox Christmas china, and when I might be able to afford a housekeeper. I spent time obsessing over the layers of fat around my stomach and spent too much time and money making sure that if I wasn’t able to look cute, my kids certainly would.

Then I remembered an incident a day or two before when Christopher had some kind of treat and wanted another one, and I admonished him for being greedy. “You need to be thankful that you got a treat–to want more is just being greedy.” And more layers of sinfulness started to peel back in my heart as I saw not only a shocking level of greed in my life, but hypocrisy as well. How will my children ever take my warnings about greed seriously if they see me chasing after more and more in my own life?

It was part of our BSF lecture that night that drew my attention to this particular pattern of sin in my life. In Matthew 9, Matthew gives his own testimony (verse 9). He was a tax collector, which means he was the most corrupt, hated man in town. He was becoming filthy rich by cheating his own people. When he left his tax collector’s booth to follow Jesus, he suffered a massive financial loss. But, as our BSF teaching leader pointed out, Matthew never mentions this material sacrifice. Because his heart had been transformed by Jesus’ amazing grace, it just wasn’t an issue for Matthew.

I am willing to give for Jesus. I’m willing to have less because I’m trying to glorify God with my finances. But I can’t say I don’t think about it. Sometimes I feel like I deserve a medal just for giving God what is His to begin with, and I look down on others who I feel aren’t being as holy as I am in this area, when in reality, I have a lot of work to do. I want to be like Matthew–to be so singularly focused on Christ that the things of this world are of no significance, except in how they can be used for God’s kingdom.

I’ll admit, this entry is not easy for me to post. I’m embarrassed about my thought life, and it would be much easier to keep it between God and me. I’ve thought a lot lately about why I’m keeping this blog. The two primary reasons are for my own growth as I grapple with issues and then go back and read the posts and remind myself of what God has been teaching me, and also as a legacy for my children to see what God was teaching me through them and others. The goal of this blog is to bring glory to God. So if I can be reminded in a few weeks to continue to repent of my greed, and if my children can someday see that I was trying to live with integrity as I taught them to not be greedy, then I’ve accomplished my goal. And if other women reading this are struggling with these same issues and are helped by my making this post public, then I hope God is glorified by that result.

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