Turn Down the Volume

“What is happening right now?”  This was my question to our youngest.  He’s waiting to get into zoom for e-learning and has a rice crispy treat in his mouth with a pile of skittles in front of him.  “Seriously though, what are you doing?”  Now please know, there are many days my kids will eat spaghetti or even ice cream for breakfast cause I’m just at that point so I’m not overly surprised this is happening at 7:40 in the morning.  You know what his answer was?  “I’m stress eating!”  WHAT?  How do you even know that exists? What is happening in the world? Then I busted out laughing.  I’m like, dude, I’m totally with you. 

Emotions getting the best of us.  Can I get an Amen!  If we could just stop the noise. I mean I’m listening to all these 5th graders speaking at once, calling the teacher a million times so I can’t imagine what it feels like to try and learn.  I’m gonna let the rice crispy go and maybe even give him another one, ha. Maybe sometimes this is what your brain feels like, even what your heart may be feeling.  So many thoughts and emotions happening that you’re reaching for anything that will make it calm down.  I’m sure we all have nights where we can’t sleep, where we just can’t turn it off. I’ve never been able to sleep well.  I’ve learned to embrace what 3 or 4 in the morning can bring me. Night time has never been easy for me. Back in the day, it brought up a lot of pain from the abuse in the past,  memories flooding my mind.  I needed to turn it off, so lots of journaling began and crying out for peace.  Philippians 4:7, “And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”   I clung to this verse.  Sometimes there is no perfect answer to what is swirling around so what do you do?  Go to the Prince of Peace.  Look, I so don’t have all the answers.  I know, shocker right? But I do know this, my shoulders don’t feel so heavy, my heart doesn’t feel so lost when I just unload to Jesus. No, he won’t have a magic wand that makes it all disappear but He does promise peace, comfort, strength which I’ll take over trying to figure out how to get that myself, ya know? Everything gets a little quieter when we release everything that’s going on inside. 

Give it a shot.  What’s it gonna hurt?  Take all that mumble jumble and hand it over. Doesn’t need to be anything fancy or deep, just be you. 

“Peace begins from within, if you are not peaceful inside, the world you see will be chaotic.